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of t\)t Republic 



STEPS IN THE EXPANSION 
OF OUR TERRITORY 



APPLETONS' 

Expansion o! the Republic Scries 

Each volume lamo. Illustrated. $1.25 net 
Postage, 12 cents additional 

The History of the Loviisiana Purchase 

By James K. Hosmer, Ph.D., LL.D. 
Ohio and Her Western Reserve 

By Alfred Mathews. 

The History of Puerto Rico 

By R. A. Van Middeldyk. With an introduction, 
etc., by Prof. Martin G. Brumbaugh. 

Steps in the Expansion of Our Territory 

By Oscar Phelps Austin, Chief of the Bureau of 
Statistics, Treasury Department. 

Rocky Mountain Exploration 

By Reuben Gold Thwaites. In preparation. 

The Conquest of the Southwest 

By Cyrus Townsend Brady, Author of " Paul Jones" 
in the Great Commanders Series. In preparation. 

The Purcha.se of Ala-skaL 

By Oscar Phelps Austin, Chief of the Bureau of 
Statistics, Treasury Department. In preparation. 

Proposed Volumes 
TKe Settletnent of tKe Pacific Coast 
TKe Foxinding of Chicago &rvd tKe Development 

of tKe Middle West 
JoKn Brow^n and the Troubles in Kansas 



D. APPLETON and company, new YORK 



STEPS IN THE 

EXPANSION OF OUR 

TERRITORY 



BY 

OSCAR P. AUSTIN 

CHIEF OF THE BUREAU OF STATISTICS, DEPARTMENT OF 

COMMERCE AND LABOR, WASHINGTON 

MEMBER OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY 




NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1903 



t>? 



a-i 



Ci-^KiCi WlUJtiV 






Copyright, 1903 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



Published November, 190S 



CONTENTS 



^ 



PAGES 

INTRODUCTION . 1-9 

FIRST PERIOD 
Discovery and exploration ..... 10-23 

Spanish exploration and occupation — Portuguese discovery 
and occupation— French and English exploration. 

SECOND PERIOD 

Colonization 24-56 

Jamestown, 1607 — French colonization begun — Plymouth, 
1620 — Dutch colonies on the Hudson — The Massachusetts 
colony— The Maryland colony— New Hampshire, Rhode 
Island, Connecticut— New York, New Jersey, and Delaware 
—The Carolinas— Pennsylvania— Georgia— From 1607 to 
1750 — Other English colonies in America — French and Eng- 
lish claim the Mississippi Valley— Territorial claims in North 
America in 1750 — Relations of the English colonies prior to 
1750— The struggle for control of the Mississippi Valley— 
The French driven ofF the continent. 

THIRD PERIOD 

Independence and union 57-81 

Trouble between the English colonies and the mother coun- 
try—The northern Ohio Valley annexed to Canada— British 
territory in America at the beginning of the Revolution — 
The War of the Revolution—Formation of the Confederation 
— Determining the boundaries of the new Union. 



Expansion of Our Territory 

FOURTH PERIOD 

PAGES 

Western lands ceded to the common Union . . 83-99 
The "Independent State of Frankland "—First steps in 
State-making from common territory — The Northwest Ter- 
ritory organized — Adoption of the Constitution — A govern- 
ment for the territory south of the Ohio. 

FIFTH PERIOD 
The formation of new States. .... 100-116 

Vermont — Kentucky — Tennessee — The Territory of Missis- 
sippi — First State formed from the Northwest Territory. 

SIXTH PERIOD 
Expansion begun — the Louisiana Purchase . . 117-126 

Causes of the purchase of Louisiana — The national area 
doubled by the purchase of Louisiana — Boundaries of the 
Louisiana Purchase. 

SEVENTH PERIOD 
The middle west subdivided — Florida purchased 127-149 
Burr's attempt to establish a new government in the south- 
west—The Territory of Illinois created— The War of 1813 
— Activity in State-making— West Florida added to the 
national area— State of Indiana — State of Mississippi — State 
of Illinois— State of Alabama— The Florida purchase- 
Boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase defined — Arkansas 
Territory created. 

EIGHTH PERIOD 

The slavery question in its relation to State- 
hood 150-164 

The Missouri Compromise and the State of Missouri — 
Balance of power between free and slave States — The Ohio 
and Michigan boundary dispute — Arkansas and Michigan 
admitted as States— Florida and Iowa admitted as States. 

vi 



Contents 

NINTH PERIOD 

PA.GES 

Texas, Oregon, and the Mexican War . . . 165-178 
Texas added to the Union — Wisconsin admitted as a State — 
The Oregon Territory — The Mexican cession. 

TENTH PERIOD 

Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri .... 179-189 
Minnesota and Oregon admitted as States — The question of 
slavery in the new Territories. 

ELEVENTH PERIOD 
The Civil War 190-203 

The war for the dissolution of the Union — Slavery termi- 
nated — Activities during the war period — Many new Ter- 
ritories formed — How West Virginia was created a State — 
Dividing the extreme northwest — State of Nevada. 

TWELFTH PERIOD 

Alaska, reconstruction, and later States . . 204-215 
The seceding States readmitted — Colorado, the " Centennial 
State" — Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, and the Dakotas 
made States — Utah as a Territory and State — Oklahoma 
and the Indian Territory. 

THIRTEENTH PERIOD 

Hawaii, Porto Rico, and the Philippines . . 216-225 
Annexation of the Hawaiian Islands — Porto Rico, Guam, 
and the Philippines — Our Samoan Island — The home of the 
National Government. 

The Causes of National Growth .... 226-244 
Growth of population — Growth of commerce — Growth of 
area — The land system — Result of a liberal land policy — 
Growth in manufacturing industry — Our .irea compared 
with that of other countries. 

vii 



Expansion of Our Territory 

PAGES 

APPENDIX 245-253 

Summary of States and Territories — Statistics of States of 
the Union organized from acquired territory — Agricultural 
and manufacturing interests of the United States, 1850 to 
1900 — Additions to the territory of the United States from 
1800 to 1900. 

INDEX 253 



VIU 



MAPS 



America, routes of discovery 

Possessions claimed by discovery in 1600 

French explorations and posts . 

Early colonial grants . 

Original English grants 

Territorial claims in North America in 1650 

Territorial claims in North America 

Territorial claims in North America in 1750 , 

Territorial division after withdrawal of French 

English colonies, 1763 to 1775 .... 

Land claims of the original States in 1773 

Plan of division of North America offered by French in 
1782 . . . . . 

Area ceded to Union by peace treaty of 1783 

Territory relinquished to common Union by original States 85 

Jefferson's plan for dividing western territory 

First steps in dividing the western territory 

The United States at the opening of the 19th century 

The Louisiana Purchase and division of Northwest Ter- 
ritory 

Subdividing the country, work of the first decade . 

Subdivisions and additions, 1810 to 1820 . 

Subdivisions of territory, 1820 to 1835 

ix 



9 
23 
27 
31 
41 
47 
51 
54 
56 
62 
75 

78 
80 



89 

98 

109 

115 
125 
135 
148 



Expansion of Our Territory 

Subdivisions of 1836 and 1837 . 

Addition of Texas .... 

The Oregon country added to the Union 

The Mexican Cession of 1848 

The western area subdivided 

History of slavery in the United States 

Reference map of Civil War 

Subdivisions of territory, 1858 to 1861 

Subdivisions of territory during the Civil War 

Recent division and addition of island territory 

The United States at the opening of the 20th century 

Development of States 



PAOE 

103 
169 
173 
176 
180 
188 
193 
197 
201 
211 
221 
facing page 242 



STEPS IN THE 
EXPANSION OF OUR TERRITORY 



INTEODUCTION 

To tell in simple terms the steps by 
whicli the United States has been trans- 
formed from thirteen political communities 
into fifty, the process by which new terri- 
tory has been added and great unoccupied 
areas have been transformed into Territories 
and then States, is the object of this work. 

The process of our national growth has 
been unique. Nations have usually been con- 
structed by the conquest and absorption of 
adjacent territory, by an alliance or consoli- 
dation of countries or communities, or by the 
planting of colonies which have remained 
subject to the parent country. But the spec- 
tacle of thirteen distinct communities uniting 
in one common organization and voluntarily 
creating from their unoccupied area other 
organizations of equal rank and power with 
themselves, until the newly created members 

1 



Expansion of Our Territory 

of tlie family finally exceeded the original in 
number, in population, and in political power, 
is an unusual feature of national history. 
The area conceded to the original thirteen 
States by the peace treaty which followed 
the close of the Revolution was, in round 
terms, 828,000 square miles, or about three 
times the present area of Texas. More than 
half of this area was voluntarily relinquished 
for the formation of new political organiza- 
tions which were to have equal rank with 
those which relinquished it; and thirteen 
other States, since formed and admitted to 
the Union, are composed in whole or in part 
from territory which belonged to the original 
thirteen in 1783. 

The original States were, as is well known, 
New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Is- 
land, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, 
North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. 
The area conceded to them by the peace treaty 
of 1783 was 827,844 square miles. Their pres- 
ent area is 325,065 square miles, or less than 
40 per cent of their original possessions. 
From the remaining 502,779 square miles 

2 



Introduction 

have been constructed the States of Maine, 
Vermont, West Virginia, Alabama, Missis- 
sippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, 
Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of 
Minnesota. Over 50,000,000 people now 
occupy the area ceded to the thirteen States 
by the peace treaty of 1783, and practically 
one-half of that number are located in the 
new States which have been formed out of 
that area. Turning to the territory which has 
been added to the area of the United States 
by the various processes, the number of 
political organizations which have been cre- 
ated is much greater. From the Louisiana 
Purchase of 1803, which more than equaled 
the original area of 1783, have been created 
fourteen new States and Territories, in whole 
or in part ; from the Florida Purchase of 
1819, a single State ; from the Texas Annexa- 
tion of 1845, the great State of Texas and 
parts of ^Ye other States and Territories, as 
will be hereafter described ; from the Oregon 
territory, to which our title was confirmed in 
1846, three States; and from the Mexican 
Cession of 1848, seven States and Territories, 
in part or whole ; while the Alaska Purchase 

3 



Expansion of Our Territory 

of 1867 gave a territory larger than any of 
the additions except the Louisiana Purchase. 
From the areas thus added have been formed 
twenty-five political organizations, and they 
contain a population of about 25,000,000, an 
area three times as large as that ceded to the 
original thirteen States and eight times as 
large as that which those thirteen original 
States now possess. 

In a word, it may be said that the original 
thirteen States relinquished about 60 per 
cent of their temtory which afterward formed 
thirteen other States, in whole or in part, 
and that there has also been added to the 
Union an area practically three times as great 
as that which originally belonged to the thir- 
teen. About one-third of the population of 
the country is located in the area reserved for 
themselves by the original thirteen States, 
another one-third in the area which they re- 
linquished to form other States, and the re- 
maining one-third in the area since added to 
the Union. 

Thus, the United States of to-day, through 
the process of addition and division into new 
political units, equal in political rank with 

4 



Introduction 

that of the older members of the Union, has 
now nearly four times as many political di- 
visions as at the formation of the Union, 
more than four times the area, and more than 
twenty-five times the population which it 
then had. It is to tell the history of this 
growth in area and population and especially 
the transition of that area into new political 
divisions that this work is devoted. 

Three hundred years is not a long time 
in the history of nations. Within that time 
the population of England has grown from 
5,000,000 to 32,000,000, that of France from 
15,000,000 to about 40,000,000, and that of 
all Europe from about 75,000,000 to practi- 
cally 400,000,000. Yet in that same period 
— from 1607 to the present time — the Eng- 
lish-speaking population of the area now 
known as the United States has grown from 
a little more than one hundred persons to 
80,000,000, and the territory which they con- 
trol from a few acres to an area equal to that 
of all Europe. 

Even if we go back to the very beginnings 
of American history, the discovery by Colum- 
bus, the period is not a long one or the 

5 



Expansion of Our Territory 

story of development difficult to trace in its 
outlines. The period from 1492 to the pres- 
ent time falls naturally into three simple di- 
visions of nearly equal length: 1. That of 
exploration and discovery, from 1492 to 1607. 
2. Colonization and colonial life, from 1607 
to 1776. 3. The formation and development 
of a nation governing itself by the dictates of 
its own people, and growing great and strong 
and prosperous until it stands in the very 
front rank of the world's great nations, ex- 
tending from 1776 to the present time. 
These three divisions of time do not differ 
greatly in length : the first, nearly a century 
and a quarter ; the second, nearly a century 
and three-quarters ; the third, a full century 
and a quarter. Their relative length may 
be better determined by the accompanying 
lines : 

Exploration, 1492-1607. 
Colonization, 1607-1776. 



Union, 1776 to the present time. 

These three divisions are necessarily 
somewhat arbitrary. There were more or 

6 



Introduction 

less attempts at colonization in the first 
period, and more or less exploration and dis- 
covery in the second and even the third. 
There was a slow drifting toward self-govern- 
ment and union in the closing portion of the 
second period. Great changes in the move- 
ments and purposes of mankind do not occur 
instantaneously, and this was especially true 
in the earlier periods when intercommunica- 
tion between men was carried on by the slow 
processes which existed before the application 
of steam and electricity to the transmission 
of thought and intelligence. But they, never- 
theless, form the outlines of our history — a 
history which begins with the discovery of 
the continent of which the United States is 
now the chief nation, so distinctively the 
chief nation that its people are designated the 
world over by the simple title " Americans." 
The third division includes the chief events 
to which this study is devoted, the trans- 
formation of common area into new States. 

The native population of America at the 
time of its discovery can, of course, only be 
estimated, and the fact that the people them- 
selves had no established basis of fact upon 



Expansion of Our Territory 

whicli estimates could be calculated, renders 
the task of forming even an estimate a diffi- 
cult one. Estimates of tlie entire population 
have, therefore, differed widely, ranging as 
high as 25,000,000, or even 30,000,000, for 
the entire continent. But the sober studies 
of ethnologists in recent years have resulted 
in the conclusion that these estimates were 
greatly exaggerated, and it now seems prob- 
able that the population of all America at the 
date of European discovery, exploration, and 
settlement did not exceed 10,000,000, and 
may have been considerably below that fig- 
ure. This population was, aj)parently, about 
equally divided between North and South 
America, the most densely populated sections 
being Mexico, Central America, and Peru, 
where also the highest grade of civilization 
and the greatest accumulations of wealth 
prevailed ; and it was to these sections that 
the Spanish gave their chief attention, 
slaughtering and despoiling the people, rob- 
bing them of their wealth, enslaving them 
and in some cases causing the almost total 
disappearance of considerable groups of the 
native population. 

8 



FIKST PEEIOD 

DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION" 

The first period, from tlie date of discov- 
ery in 1492 to the first permanent English 
settlement in 1607, was devoted to determin- 
ing the form, the character, and the possibili- 
ties of the newly found world — the Ameri- 
can continent. Its discovery was an incident 
in an attempt to find a direct water-route to 
India, whence Europe had long drawn an 
important supply of gold and silks and spices 
and perfumes and precious stones, but to 
which the overland route was difficult and 
attended with great dangers from fierce des- 
ert tribes ; and Columbus, who discovered 
America in 1492, supposed up to the time of 
his death in 1506 that the land which he had 
found was simply the eastern coast of Asia. 
Seven years later, however, Balboa, exploring 
the Isthmus of Darien from the most west- 
erly point he had been able to reach by 
10 



Discovery and Exploration 

water, discovered that anotlier ocean lay be- 
yond, and then the European world began to 
realize that a new continent awaited its ex- 
ploration and development. 



SPANISH EXPLORATION AND OCCUPATION 

The first settlement of Europeans in 
America was established by Columbus him- 
self. On his first voyage he left forty of his 
crew with abundant supplies on the Island 
of Haiti, as it was called by the natives, or 
Santo Domingo as the Spanish named it, with 
the purpose of establishing a permanent set- 
tlement. On his return, a year later, he 
found that the entire colony had perished, 
partly though internal dissensions and partly 
by reason of unjust dealings with the natives 
who had destroyed them. Another colony 
was immediately planted at a more favorable 
spot on the same island, naming it Isabella. 
The city thus founded became the first per- 
manent European settlement in America, and 
was the capital of Spanish America until 
about 1520. ' From it other colonies or 
groups of Spanish settlers were sent, to Ja- 
il 



Expansion of Our Territory 

maica in 1509; Porto Kico, in 1510; and 
Cuba, in 1511. Ponce de Leon, who liad been 
^Governor of Porto Eico, went from tbat 
island to Florida in search of a fountain 
which was reported to be capable of giv- 
ing permanent youth, and thus was the first 
to explore the mainland of the continent 
(1513), and two years later Pineda explored 
the country along the north coast of the Gulf 
of Mexico. Soon the Governor of Cuba sent 
Cortez on an expedition to explore and con- 
quer Mexico, and on arriving there (1519) 
he found that the land was occupied by a 
people far superior to any that had been seen 
in the islands or on the northern shores of 
the Gulf of Mexico. Destroying his ships to 
compel his men to fight with greater courage 
he penetrated the country, and in two years 
had subdued and taken control of Mexico. 
Pizarro, who had accompanied Balboa when 
he discovered the Pacific in 1513, visited Peru 
in 1526 and discovered its civilization and 
wealth. On reporting the facts to the Span- 
ish Government, he was authorized to in- 
vade and conquer it, and by 1536 was in con- 
trol of the country which now forms Peru, 

12 



Discovery and Exploration 

Chile, and Ecuador. In 1539 De Soto, who 
had accompanied Pizarro to South America, 
returned to the mainland of North America, 
where he supposed he would also find a 
wealthy people whom he might conquer and 
despoil ; and with a company of men marched 
from the coast of Florida to the Mississippi 
Eiver near the present city of Vicksburg, 
finding only savages and undergoing hard- 
ships which caused his death. His suffering 
followers, much reduced in numbers, descend- 
ed the river and reached the Spanish settle- 
ments in Mexico. In 1540 Coronado, a 
Spanish governor of northern Mexico, heard 
that there were seven wealthy cities lying at 
the north of his country, and organized an 
expedition to conquer them. He marched to 
the north, but found, however, only some 
cities of the Pueblo Indians, and turning 
eastward, crossed what is now known as New 
Mexico and probably a part of Kansas, and 
extended his explorations eastward nearly to 
the point on the Mississippi Kiver which De 
Soto had reached on his westward march 
from Florida. Finding none of the expected 
riches, he returned to Mexico. In 1582 Fran- 
13 



Expansion of Our Territory 

ciscan friars opened missions in the valley of 
the Kio Grande, and in 1598 Santa Fe, a city 
of the Pueblo Indians, was occupied and 
made the seat of Spanish government in the 
north of Mexico; but it was not until 1776, 
the year of the Declaration of Independence, 
that the Spanish extended their settlements 
to San Francisco on the Pacific coast. In 
1535 Spain established a settlement at Buenos 
Ayres in South America and took possession 
of the Plata River, thus controlling practi- 
cally all of South America except Brazil, 
which was claimed by the Portuguese. In 
1526 Vasquez de Ay lion, who had been on a 
special mission to Cuba, obtained permission 
from the Spanish Government to establish a 
colony on the Atlantic coast of North Amer- 
ica, and planted an unsuccessful Spanish col- 
ony called San Miguel, on the James River, 
at the very spot where, eighty-one years later, 
Jamestown was established as the first per- 
manent English settlement in America. In 
1565 Menendez de Aviles established the set- 
tlement of St. Augustine, Florida, which re- 
mained a permanent Spanish settlement, and 
was the first permanent settlement of Euro- 
14 



Discovery and Exploration 

peans in the area now known as the United 

States. 

The Spanish retained their control of 
Florida until 1763, when they ceded it to 
Great Britain in exchange for a part of 
Cuba, w hich that country had captured ; but 
it was in 1783 retroceded by Great Britain to 
the Spanish, and in 1819 it was sold by 
Spain to the United States. The Spanish 
retained possession of Mexico, which ex- 
tended as far north as the present northern 
boundary of California, until 1822, when a 
popular uprising drove out the Spanish offi- 
cials and the Eepublic of Mexico was es- 
tablished in 1823. A series of revolutions 
against Spanish control, which had been be- 
gun in South America in 1810, was finally 
successful in 1824, and in 1825 the people 
of Central America also established a repub- 
lic, thus terminating Spanish control on the 
mainland of America. In 1898 the United 
States, moved by the cruelties of the Span- 
ish Government against Cuba, compelled 
Spain to relinquish control of that island 
and Porto Kico, and aided Cuba in organ- 
izing an independent republican govern- 
15 



Expansion of Our Territory 

ment, thus terminating Spanish control in 
America. 

The work of Spain on the American con- 
tinent may be summed up in a few words. 
The establishment of settlements or colonies 
began with the first voyage of Columbus and 
was rapidly extended during the following 
half century. Before the English or French 
or Dutch had founded a single colony in 
the new world, the Spanish had overrun and 
taken possession of the West Indian Islands, 
Florida, Mexico, Central America, and prac- 
tically all of South America except Brazil. 
Their control and operations, however, were 
for the purpose of obtaining wealth rather 
than of establishing colonies and permanent 
homes for their people. They ravaged the 
territory which they occupied, despoiled the 
natives of their accumulated wealth, destroyed 
their cities, took possession of their mines, 
and enslaved the population for their opera- 
tion and for the operation of theii^ sugar 
plantations in the West Indian Islands, the 
only section of their great American posses- 
sions in which agriculture was extensively 
developed by them. 

16 



Discovery and Exploration 

PORTUGUESE DISCOVERY AND OCCUPATION 

Portugal was tlie next country after Spain 
to establish permanent settlements in Amer- 
ica. A Portuguese fleet starting for India 
via the southern extremity of Africa, in the 
year 1500, by some miscalculation sailed far- 
ther west than intended and discovered the 
eastern coast of South America, and took pos- 
session in the name of the Portuguese Govern- 
ment. No attempt at settlement was made, 
however, until 1532, when a colony was plant- 
ed south of the present site of Kio de Janeiro, 
and other colonies soon followed. That set- 
tlement remained a successful Portuguese 
colony for many years, its gold, diamonds, 
and plantations proving a source of great 
wealth to Portugal. When the Portuguese 
prince regent, John VI, was compelled to flee 
from the armies of Napoleon in 1808 he estab- 
lished the seat of Portuguese government in 
Brazil, remaining there until 1821, when he 
returned to Portugal as king, leaving his son, 
Don Pedro, as prince regent of Brazil ; but 
the prince soon placed himself at the head of 
a movement for independence, and in the fol- 
17 



Expansion of Our Territory 

lowing year was proclaimed the head of the 
independent empire of Brazil, which in turn 
became a republic in 1889, ending Portuguese 
government in America. 

FRENCH AND ENGLISH EXPLORATION 

During the period in which Spain and 
Portugal were taking possession of America 
from Florida southward two other nations 
were busy exploring and studying the eastern 
coast of North America from Florida north- 
ward. These two nations were England and 
France. They began these explorations with- 
in a few years following the discovery, partly 
in an effort to find a northwest passage to 
Asia, partly in the hope of discovering valu- 
able minerals, and partly in the general spirit 
of adventure. Soon the value of the fisheries 
near the mouth of the St. Lawrence became 
known and proved a great attraction to the 
people of those countries, and especially to 
those accustomed to maritime occupations. In 
this manner the English and French gradu- 
ally became acquainted with the coast from 
Florida to a point far north of the mouth of 
the St. Lawrence. Efforts to plant colonies 
18 



Discovery and Exploration 

began as early as 1534-35 by the French, 
Cartier spending a winter at a point on the 
St. Lawi-ence which he named Mont-Eeal, and 
another effort was made by him in 1541 near 
Quebec. Twenty years later efforts were 
made by the French to establish colonies on 
the St. Johns river in Florida, naming the 
country Carolina, in honor of the boy king, 
Charles IX, but the efforts were unsuccessful. 
Other efforts were made in Nova Scotia and 
along the St. Lawi^ence later in the century, 
but were unsuccessful, owing chiefly to the 
fact that the persons sent as colonists were 
largely of the pauper and criminal classes and 
devoid of the sterling qualities which were 
required for success in a new land. 

The English also made slow progress in 
attempts at colonization. Many English ves- 
sels visited America following Cabot's voyage 
in 1497, and by 1570 from thirty to fifty ves- 
sels went every year to the Newfoundland 
fishing banks, while many others cruised along 
the eastern coast of America in search of gold, 
seeking a northwest passage to India, or on 
buccaneering expeditions. An attempt was 
made to establish a permanent settlement 

19 



Expansion of Our Territory 

at IN'ewfoundland in 1579, but it was not suc- 
cessful. In 1585 another effort was made 
farther south, at Roanoke Island, North Caro- 
lina, but the colonists hastened back to Eng- 
land at the first opportunity. In 1587 Lord 
Raleigh, who had made unsuccessful attempts 
to establish colonies in Newfoundland in 1579 
and at Roanoke Island in 1585, sent another 
party to Roanoke Island, with John White 
as governor. Among the colonists were Gov- 
ernor White's daughter, Eleanor Dare, and 
her husband, and on August 18th of that year 
(1587) she gave birth to a daughter, the first 
child of English parents born in America. 
This child was given the name of Virginia, 
the name by which that part of America had 
been designated in honor of the virgin Queen 
Elizabeth. Governor White soon left for 
England to obtain supplies, but his return 
was delayed by war troubles at home until 
1591, when he found only the ruins of the 
buildings and no traces of any of the colonists, 
and all attempts to find them were unavailing. 
Rumors were afterward heard that members 
of the colony still existed among the Indian 
tribes, but none of them was ever found, and 
20 



Discovery and Exploration 

the fate of Virginia Dare, tlie first child born 
in America of English parents, is unknown. 

All of the efforts at colonization made by 
the English and French between the discov- 
ery in 1492 and the year 1607 were failures, 
chiefly because of a lack of knowledge of the 
territory and the selection of a class of peo- 
ple unsuited by training and disposition to 
undergo the hardships and apply the persist- 
ent labor and energy necessary to overcome 
the adverse conditions of climate and sur- 
roundings among the savages. The Spanish 
were more successful, because they had 
chanced to make their efforts in a part of the 
country having a less rigorous climate and 
inhabited by prosperous but physically w^eak 
nations whom they were readily able to over- 
come and rob of both their labor and their 
accumulations of gold and silver. 

The century of study of America and the 
experiments at colonization made during that 
time finally taught the English and French 
something of the difi&culties of the task and 
the class of people necessary for this work. 
By the year 1600 both nations had begun to 
realize that if they were to accomplish any- 
21 



Expansion of Our Territory 

thing in America they must utilize people of 
energy, perseverance, and having some defi- 
nite and well-developed motive. The French 
chose for their medium of success a combina- 
tion of religion and commercialism, a part of 
the people sent to America being Catholic 
priests, who entered zealously upon the 
work of carrying their religion among the 
savao:es, while traders were authorized to 
operate among the Indians in the purchase of 
furs in exchange for merchandise from Eu- 
rope. By the explorations of these two 
classes it was expected that the French could 
extend their claims to American territory, as 
they subsequently did. Hence the French 
settlements established after 1600 partook 
more of the nature of missions or trading 
posts than of colonies. The English selected 
as their method of controlling the country 
the establishment of groups of people of a 
class who would attempt to make permanent 
homes for themselves, to cultivate the soil, 
and thus render themselves self-supporting, 
and provide for a gradual enlargement of the 
area occupied and of their control of the 
country and people. 

22 




23 



SECOND PEEIOD 

COLONIZATION 

The English having learned by their ex- 
plorations and experiments during the six- 
teenth century that colonization in the New 
World was a serious task, set seriously about 
it shortly after the year 1600. In 1606 King 
James chartered an organization whose avowed 
purpose was to plant colonies in America. 
A part of this organization was composed of 
London merchants and a part of traders and 
gentlemen located at Plymouth, in the west 
of Eno^land. The orsjanization was divided 
in two sections — that composed of London 
merchants being called "The London Com- 
pany," the other, composed of those residing 
at Plymouth, was called " The Plymouth Com- 
pany " — and they seem to have operated alto- 
gether independently of each other. The 
London Company was authorized to plant 
colonies between the thirty-fourth and forty- 
24 



Colonization 

first parallels of latitude, or between what 
is now the southern limit of North Carolina 
and the southern line of Connecticut. The 
Plymouth Company was authorized to plant 
colonies between the thirty-eighth and forty- 
fifth parallels, or between a point just north 
of the mouth of the Potomac and Eastport at 
the extreme eastern point of Maine. Their 
assignments of area, it will be seen, over- 
lapped each other, but this was adjusted 
by later action. 

JAMESTOWN, 1G07 

The London Company was more active 
than its Western England associate, and in 
the very year of its organization sent out a 
colony of a little above one hundred men to 
settle at or near Eoanoke Island. They 
sailed in December, 1606, sighted land in 
April, 1607, entered the Chesapeake Bay, 
naming the capes at its mouth Henry and 
Charles after the king's sons, and ascended a 
river which they called the James after the 
king himself. On May 13 they landed at a 
point fifty miles above the mouth, and there 
planted the first permanent colony of Eng- 

9r^ 



Expansion of Our Territory 

lishmen in America. Curiously the spot se- 
lected was the very one on which De Ayllon, 
the Spanish commander, had located his un- 
successful colony of San Miguel in 1526, 
eighty-one years earlier, though there is no 
evidence that this fact was known to the 
English when they selected this spot. The 
colony had a hard time for years, and the 
survivors were on the point of abandoning 
Jamestown to seek food among the fishermen 
of Newfoundland when a vessel arrived with 
supplies and the colony was made permanent, 
and by additions from time to time began 
to slowly expand. 

FRENCH COLONIZATION BEGUN 

The very next year (1608) the French 
established their first permanent settlement 
in America, locating it at the present Quebec, 
but, like most of the French ^' colonies," it was 
a mere trading post, set up chiefly for the 
purpose of trading with the Indians and 
establishing the claim of France to the sur- 
rounding territory. In 1611 they established 
a post at what is now Montreal, and their 
fur-traders and missionaries began to explore 

26 




GVL,F OP MEXICO 

Longitude "West 89° from OTeenwleh 



Marqnette & Joliet'a Route, 
in 1673. 

La Salle's Roiite to Ft 
Crevecoeur and return, 167 
La Salle's Route from Ft. St. 
Louis to the Gulf, 1682. 
^•i— Hennepin'A Route, 1680. 

SCALE OF MILE8_ ^ 



27 



Expansion of Our Territory 

the interior, following the Ottawa Eiver from 
Montreal to the west, and by 1615 had 
reached Lake Huron, having selected this 
northern route to the interior because the 
country along the St. Lawrence and Lakes 
Ontario and Erie was occupied by hostile In- 
dian tribes, the Iroquois. The name " Cana- 
da " was given to the country along the St. 
Lawrence Eiver by the early French explor- 
ers, and seems to have been derived from the 
Indians. 

PLYMOUTH, 1620 

The next step in permanent colonization 
was by a group of English people who had 
removed from England to Holland because of 
dissatisfaction with the established state re- 
ligion of England. This state religion of Eng- 
land, while Protestant, retained certain fea- 
tures of the Catholic rituals with which some 
of the people were dissatisfied, and the various 
bands who opposed it were known as Inde- 
pendents, Puritans, Dissenters, etc. Many of 
them had left England for Holland in the 
fifteenth century, and in 1620 a little band of 
Independents determined to remove from 
Holland to America, where they could have 
28 



Colonization 

botli freedom of worship and establish per- 
manent homes for themselves. They ob- 
tained a grant of land from the London 
Company, intending to settle between the 
Hudson and the Delaware Kivers. The cap- 
tain of their vessel professed, however, not 
to be able to proceed so far south on account 
of adverse winds, and they landed, December 
22, 1620, on the northern coast of Cape Cod, 
a short distance south of the present city 
of Boston, and within the territory of the 
Plymouth Company, from which they sub- 
sequently obtained a patent. They experi- 
enced great sufferiDg that winter, but the 
next year fifty more Englishmen came out 
from Holland, and in the following year 
thirty more, and thus the colony, which was 
called Plymouth, became permanent. Many 
years later, in 1691, it was united with the 
Massachusetts colony and ceased to exist as 
a separate colony. \ 

DUTCH COLONIES ON THE HUDSON 

Meantime the Dutch had begun to exhibit 
an interest in America. A Dutch exploring 
expedition under Captain Hendrick Hudson, 
29 



Expansion of Our Territory 

searching for a passage througli America to 
India, had sailed up the river now known as 
the Hudson in 1609, two years after the 
English settlement at Jamestown, and one 
year after the French settlement at Quebec, 
and soon Holland set up a claim to that part 
of America, calling it New Netherlands, and 
naming the river after its explorer, Hudson. 
Some of their fur-traders built huts near 
where New York is now located as early as 
1615. In that year the Dutch Government 
chartered the New Netherlands Trading Com- 
pany, granting it trading privileges in New 
Netherlands, and it was succeeded in 1621 
by the Dutch West India Company. In 
1624 this company sent thirty families to 
found a colony on the Hudson. Part of 
them settled at the mouth of the river, near 
where New York now stands, and a part 
went up the river to the present site of Al- 
bany, establishing 9. fort which they called 
Fort Orange. A few also went to a point on 
the Delaware, not fer from the present site 
of Philadelphia, and another party settled on 
the north side of Long Island Sound, in 
what is now Connecticut. Additions were 
30 




EARLY COLONIAL GKANTJS 
.4620-1681 



SCALE OF MILES 



■* 5 bO lOU 

Longitude Weat 70° from Qr con' 



31 



Expansion of Our Territory 

made to these small groups from time to 
time, and the Dutch took possession of both 
sides of the Hudson River and from New 
York (or New Amsterdam, as it was then 
called) south to Delaware Bay. They re- 
tained their control until 1664, when Eng- 
land, claiming the title of the country by 
discovery prior to that of the Dutch, sent 
out a small fleet and took possession of New 
Amsterdam and of the colonies, calling the 
town and the colony New York, after the 
county and city of York, England, and in 
compliment to the Duke of York, who was 
made proprietor of the conquered territory. 
Fort Orange was named Albany, in honor of 
the duke's second title, Albany. 

THE MASSACHUSETTS COLONY 

Eight years after the Plymouth colonists 
established themselves on the bleak coast of 
Cape Cod they had neighbors. A new settle- 
ment was established just beside them at 
Salem, near the present site of Boston, in 
1628. The people had been sent out by a 
company chartered as the "Governor and 
County of Massachusetts Bay," and the col- 
32 



Colonization 

ony thus came to be known as the Massa- 
chusetts Colony. As it increased in num- 
bers, separate settlements or *^ congregations" 
were organized, and in 1630 Boston became 
the capital of the colony, which proved suc- 
cessful from the first, and received additions 
of about 1,000 from England in that year 
alone. The people composing this colony 
were chiefly of the class known as Puritans, 
as already described. 

THE MARYLAND COLONY 

Neighbors also came to the Virginia col- 
ony about this time. In 1634 a party of 
about 200 English arrived and located on the 
north bank of the Potomac, about seventy- 
five miles north of Jamestown. They came 
under a charter granted to Lord Baltimore, 
who had given the colony the name of Mary- 
land, in honor of the queen, Henrietta Maria. 
The land granted to this colony was within 
the limits claimed by the Virginia colony, 
and this fact, coupled with the fact that the 
Maryland colonists were chiefly Catholics, 
led to sharp differences, and for some years 
their relations were not altogether of a neigh- 
33 



Expansion of Our Territory 

borly character. However, the Maryland 
colony continued to exist, and increased in 
numbers and area occupied. 

NEW HAMPSHIRE, RHODE ISLAND, CONNECTICUT 

After these four English colonies of Vir- 
ginia, Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Mary- 
land had been firmly established, the process 
of colonization or settlement developed by 
another method. Little groups of people, 
dissatisfied for one cause or another, left the 
original colonies, and wandering oif into the 
forests, established colonies or settlements for 
themselves, and having formed a nucleus, 
were joined by people from England. Settle- 
ments of fishermen and others were made 
about 100 miles north of Plymouth in 1623, 
and in 1629 John Mason, of England, who 
had some years earlier obtained a patent for 
the land, took control of the section and 
called it New Hampshire, after his home 
county of Hampshire, England. The scat- 
tered settlements increased partly by acces- 
sions from England, and were known as New 
Hampshire and the area as the New Hamp- 
shire Grants until 1641, when they united 
34 



Colonization 

witli the Massachusetts colony ; but in 1769 
were made a separate royal province. The 
colony was reunited with Massachusetts in 
1685, but was afterward again established as 
a separate province, and finally became defi- 
nitely one of the American colonies. In 

1635 a handful of people removed from 
Plymouth to the valley of the Connecticut 
River, and were soon followed by others 
from Massachusetts and Plymouth, estab- 
lishing the settlements of Hartford and New 
Haven, which were strengthened by acces- 
sions from England, and were afterward 
united as the colony of Connecticut. In 

1636 Roger Williams, a minister whose ex- 
treme views did not suit the people of 
Massachusetts, was banished from that col- 
ony and established the settlement of Provi- 
dence. Others, driven from Massachusetts 
and Plymouth, established the settlements of 
Newport and Portsmouth, and they were 
subsequently united under the title of the 
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, 
receiving accessions both from the other col- 
onies and from England. 



35 



Expansion of Our Territory 

NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY, AND DELAWARE 

In 1664, as already related, the British 
drove out the Dutch from the Hudson Eiver 
territory, and taking possession, gave to the 
settlements the name of New York. They 
also took possession of the territory along 
the coast from New York to the Delaware, 
which had also been held by the Dutch, and 
this was granted to Sir George Carteret, for- 
mer governor and defender of the British 
Isle of Jersey, and called New Jersey in his 
honor. As the Dutch had also held a small 
strip of country on the south side of the 
Delaware River (which was claimed by Lord 
Baltimore as a part of his grant of Maryland), 
the English also took possession of that, al- 
though Lord Baltimore again insisted that it 
belonged to him. It was subsequently sold 
to William Penn, but still later established as 
the colony of Delaware. All of these areas, 
New York, New Jersey, and Delaware, had 
a considerable Dutch population, and in New 
Jersey was also a settlement of Swedes, and 
to this was soon added English, some from 
the adjacent colonies and some from England. 
36 



Colonization 

THE CAROLINAS 

Meantime the disposition of the Virginia 
settlers to extend their settlements into the 
surrounding country, outside of the area 
granted to the original colonies, had made 
itself apparent. The French had planted col- 
onies of Huguenots in the south in 1562, 
and called the country Carolina, in honor of 
the boy King of France, Charles IX; but, 
although they were quickly driven out by 
the Spanish, the country was thereafter 
known by the name of "Carolina." Into 
this country parties of settlers from Virginia 
made their way, and the first permanent set- 
tlement of North Carolina was made at the 
place subsequently called Albemarle, by a 
party from Virginia in 1653. In 1664 a party 
of English from the Island of Barbados set- 
tled on the Cape Fear River, the settlement 
subsequently receiving the name of Claren- 
don, and this was the beginning of the per- 
manent settlement of South Carolina. These 
two names of Albemarle and Clarendon were 
given to these settlements in honor of the 
Earl of Clarendon and Duke of Albemarle, 
members of an English company to which 
37 



Expansion of Our Territory 

Carolina had been granted in 1663. To the 
settlements thus created additions were made 
from Virginia, from I^ew England, from the 
English settlements in the Bahamas and Bar- 
bados islands, and from England. These two 
colonies, however, made very slow growth com- 
pared with that of the others during the first 
half century of their existence. 

PENNSYLVANIA 

Lying between the colony of Virginia at 
the south and the area held by the Dutch on 
the Hudson was a section of country which 
had received little attention when the Eng- 
lish took possession of the New Netherlands 
territory, and formed the colonies or prov- 
inces of New York, New Jersey, and Dela- 
ware. This area soon began to attract atten- 
tion. In 1681 William Penn, an English 
Quaker, asked that it be granted to him in 
settlement of a claim of his father, a former 
admiral in the English navy, and this was 
done. He proposed to establish a popular 
government, based upon principles of exact 
justice, and offered his land at the low price 
of two pounds sterling for 100 acres, or 
38 



Colonization 

about ten cents per acre, and within a short 
time his colony was established, the name 
Pennsylvania, or Penn's Forest, having been 
given to it by the king himself. Quakers, 
Swedes, Dutch, Germans, Welsh, and Eng- 
lish flocked in, some from their homes in 
Europe and some from the surrounding colo- 
nies and settlements, and Pennsylvania soon 
became a flourishing colony. 

GEORGIA 

No more separate colonies were formed 
after Pennsylvania until 1733, when James 
Oglethorpe, a member of the British Parlia- 
ment, conceived the idea of establishing a 
colony between the Carolinas and Florida to 
furnish a home for the unfortunate debtor 
class of England. A charter was granted to 
him and others, and the country was called 
Georgia, in honor of King George II. The 
debtors transported to the colony, however, 
proved to be unsuited to the surroundings 
and the requirements of the situation, and 
parties of Scotch Highlanders and German 
Protestants were brought, but the colony 
remained one of the weakest for many years. 
4 39 



Expansion of Our Territory 

This was the last colony established in 
America by the English. 

Thus the period from 1607 to about 1750 
was devoted by the English to the planting 
and slow development of their thirteen colo- 
nies, and by 1750 they claimed and occupied 
with scattering settlements all of the Atlan- 
tic coast from Florida on the south to the 
valley of the St. Lawrence at the north. 
The charters under which the colonies had 
been organized and put into operation in 
some cases purported to extend from ocean 
to ocean, especially in the case of Virginia, 
Massachusetts, and Connecticut, while North 
Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia also 
claimed territory as far west as the Missis- 
sippi. 

FROM 1607 TO 1750 

More than one hundred years were occu- 
pied in the establishment of the thirteen colo. 
nies, which subsequently became the United 
States of America. The first, Virginia, was 
planted in 1607, the last, Georgia, in 1733, 
one hundred and twenty-six years later. The 
population of Virginia in 1600 was about 
15,000, and that of all the thirteen English 
40 




.00 100 I iioo aoo 

ngrtude ^0" "West from 75° Greenwich 



41 



Expansion of Our Territory 

colonies probably about 60,000. By 1700 
the population of all the colonies was about 
250,000, and by 1750, 1,250,000. By 1750 
the thirteen English colonies fully occupied 
all the area fronting on the Atlantic coast, 
from the Spanisli territory of Florida to the 
French territory on the St. Lawrence. Up 
to about that time the English had made 
little attempt to extend their settlement be- 
yond the Alleghanies, though the older colo- 
nies — Virginia, Massachusetts, and Connecti- 
cut — claimed that their charter extended " to 
the South Sea," or, in other words, to the 
Pacific Ocean. A settlement of Virginia was 
made on the Kanawha west of the Allegha- 
nies in 1748, and in 1749 King George 
granted to a company of wealthy Virginians, 
called "The Ohio Company," 500,000 acres 
of land in the Ohio Valley on the agreement 
that they were to locate at least 100 families 
upon it, and build and maintain a fort. 

OTHER ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA 

It must not be understood that the thir- 
teen colonies whose planting has been here 
described were the only English colonies in 
42 



Colonization 

America. The Englisli had meantime estab- 
lished colonies in the Bermudas, Bahamas, 
Jamaica, and Honduras on the south, and 
Nova Scotia and Newfoundland at the north, 
and the Hudson Bay Company had estab- 
lished trading stations in the Hudson Bay 
country, and thus established a British claim 
to that territory; but these were so far re- 
moved from the thirteen colonies lying be- 
tween Florida and the St. Lawrence that 
they had little relationship with them, and 
little of interest in common with them. 

FRENCH AND ENGLISH CLAIM THE MISSISSIPPI 
VALLEY 

Meantime the French had not been idle. 
Their explorers, fur-traders, and missionaries 
had pushed west through the wilderness 
from Quebec and Montreal along the Otta- 
wa Eiver to Lake Huron in 1615. They 
soon crossed the river which connects Huron 
with Superior, and pushed westward in 1634 
in the area now known as Wisconsin and Illi- 
nois. In 1641 Jesuit priests said mass in 
the presence of 2,000 Indians at Sault Ste. 
Marie. In 1673 Joliet and Marquette ex- 
43 



Expansion of Our Territory- 
tended their explorations througli Wisconsin 
to the Mississippi River, and down that 
stream to the mouth of the Arkansas, and in 
the period from 16V8 to 1682 La Salle ex- 
plored Lake Michigan, crossed from the site 
of Chicago to the Illinois River, and then 
descended the Illinois and the Mississippi to 
the Gulf of Mexico, establishing the claim of 
the French to the valley of the Mississippi, 
by reason of discovery and exploration. 
Thus, although the French population in 
America was not more than one-tenth that of 
the English, and although their base of oper- 
ation occupied an inhospitable climate and 
region, they had drawn a cordon of explora- 
tions and claims to territory around the Eng- 
lish colonies at the north and west and along 
the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and the 
Mississippi River, from the Gulf of St. Law- 
rence to the Gulf of Mexico, during the pe- 
riod in which the English were occupying 
the area between Florida and the St. Law- 
rence and the Atlantic and the Alleghanies. 
After the exploration and establishment of 
claims to this great stretch of territory from 
the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the mouth 
44 



Colonization 

of the Mississippi, the Frencli proceeded to 
strengthen their claims by establishing tra- 
ding stations, military posts, forts, and little 
communities all along this line at the north 
and west. They made friends with the Indi- 
ans, and many of their men who did not 
bring families from France intermarried with 
the Indians and reared half-breed families. 
By these and other methods they strength- 
ened their hold upon the savage tribes and 
prepared for the inevitable struggle with the 
English for the control of this western terri- 
tory which the English colonists still claimed 
as their own under the charters to Virginia, 
Massachusetts, and Connecticut. By 1750 
the French not only claimed the line of ter- 
ritory along the St. Lawrence and Great 
Lakes and the Mississippi, but all the terri- 
tory drained by them and by the rivers emp- 
tying into them, including the Ohio, Tennes- 
see, and Cumberland on the east, and the 
Missouri, Arkansas, and Eed Rivers on the 
west. Thus their claim to territory by 1750 
extended far to the north of the St. Law- 
rence and the Great Lakes, and covered all 
the territory between the Alleghanies and 
45 



Expansion of Our Territory 

the Rocky Mountains, down the Mississippi 
to the Gulf of Mexico, the area claimed at 
the gulf extending a considerable distance 
on each side of the mouth of the Mississippi. 
The Spanish at that time still held Florida 
and Mexico, claiming the Mexican country 
as far north as the head of the Rio Grande 
and Colorado rivers, and west to the Pacific, 
and still later they extended their claim as 
far as the northern line of California. 

TERRITORIAL CLAIMS IN NORTH AMERICA IN 1750 

This was the general situation in North 
America in 1750. The English colonies held 
the area from Florida to the valley of the 
St. Lawrence and extending from the Atlan- 
tic to the AUeghanies, also the Hudson Bay 
country and Newfoundland. The French 
claimed the territory from the St. Lawrence 
half-way to Hudson Bay at the north, and 
all the territory from the AUeghanies to the 
Rocky Mountains in a wedge-shaped area 
down the Mississippi Valley to the gulf. The 
Spanish held Florida and Mexico, ranging 
into the north and west to the Pacific coast. 



46 




NORTH AMERICA 
1650. 

lO'SHOWINQ CUIMS ARISING OUT OF EXPLORATION 
AND O GCUPANGY. 
Cfil1 -„.English 

^^^^ French 

....Dutch 
m^.... Swedish 
^^ Spanish 



S CALE OF MILES 
2U) •lUU 600 800 lOOJ) f^ ^V > C > 1 

lOO'Longltude West O'p" from Greenwich 8,9^^-gg^j$:;^:j§;:;:§^.^^^^t:^ 



47 



Expansion of Our Territory 



RELATIONS OF THE ENGLISH COLONIES PRIOR 
TO 1750 

During the period from 1607 to 1750 the 
English colonies had conducted their affairs 
independently of each other. There had been 
a confederation of New England colonies for 
the purpose of mutual defense and coopera- 
tion in certain matters, each colony, however, 
continuing to manage its own local affairs ; 
but after it had operated about twenty years, 
the British Government grew suspicious that 
it might result in too great a feeling of inde- 
pendence, and sent a commission over to 
assume control and administer government, 
and the confederation was dissolved, though 
the commission did not long continue as the 
governing power. The southern colonies 
were governed during most of the colonial 
period by governors sent out from England, 
or at least appointed by the British Govern- 
ment, while during a large part of the period 
the New England colonies were permitted to 
choose their own governors from among their 
people ; the laws and general regulations 
were based upon English laws and customs. 
48 



Colonization 

The details of government in each colony 
were provided by legislative bodies, some of 
them "bicameral," or having two branches 
like our own present Congress, others having 
but a single organization. The purely local 
government was created and enforced by local 
assemblies, and by the "town meeting" in 
New England. The attacks of the Indian 
tribes sometimes resulted in cooperation of 
certain colonies for mutual defense, and on 
certain occasions, when the English and the 
French governments were at war at home, 
there were conflicts between the French and 
English colonies in America, the former util- 
izing the Indians to aid them wherever pos- 
sible ; and these events drew the English col- 
onists closer together, but without resulting 
in any definite union or general plan of co- 
operation, though this had been proposed on 
several occasions. 

THE STRUGGLE FOR CONTROL OP THE MISSIS- 
SIPPI VALLEY 

By 1750 it had become apparent that the 
control of all the territory west of the Alle- 
ghanies must be determined, and that it 
49 



Expansion of Our Territory 

probably could be settled only by force of 
arms. The Englisli claimed that they were 
entitled to control all of the territory extend- 
ing west from their colonies to the Pacific, 
and had so held during the century and a 
half since the charters were granted, extend- 
ing " to the South Sea." The French claimed 
the area west of the Alleghanies by explora- 
tion and occupancy. The English colonists 
had 1,200,000 people and they were begin- 
ning to clamor for the privilege of occupying 
the rich country west of the Alleghanies; 
and, as already stated, a grant of a half mil- 
lion acres had been made by King George in 
1749 to the Ohio Company, composed of 
wealthy Virginians, including a brother of 
George Washington, with the requirement 
that they settle 100 families on the land and 
erect and maintain a fort. It was known 
that they would meet with opposition from 
the French, who had been exploring the 
Ohio Valley, planting leaden plates with in- 
scriptions indicating their claim to the terri- 
tory, and establishing posts and forts where 
practicable. The British directed the gov- 
ernors " to repel force by force whenever the 
50 




English 

Fiench- 

Spanish 



iU 100 200 300 iOO 500 



61 



Expansion o.^ Our Territory 

Frencli are found within undoubted limits 
of your province," and the same spirit pre- 
vailed with reference to the territory claimed 
by each of the colonies. George Washington, 
a young surveyor, was sent out to survey and 
locate the land granted to the Ohio Com- 
pany. The company, seeing that the junc- 
tion of the Alleghany and Monongahela 
rivers, the present site of Pittsburg, was an 
important strategic point, determined to take 
possession of it, and in October, 1753, George 
Washington was sent by the Governor of 
Virginia to warn the French not to occupy 
that spot. In December he returned and re- 
ported that while the French had treated 
him politely, they had told him that they 
meant to take and hold the place and that 
they claimed the entire surrounding territory. 
By the following April the French had made 
good their statement, had sent 1,200 men to 
the junction of the Alleghany and Mononga- 
hela, had driven off the forty Englishmen 
located there, and constructed and manned 
a fort which they called Fort Duquesne. 
Washington was sent to the scene of action 
with a small body of troops, and in May, 
52 



Colonization 

1754, an encounter between his force and a 
body of the French occurred. The English 
were successful in the first encounter, but by 
July the French had rallied their forces and 
Washington was forced to retire. A final 
contest between the French and English for 
the final control of the country west of the 
AUesrhanies was thus bes^un. 

From the first the French were at a great 
disadvantage. They had in all America but 
80,000 of their own people, while the English 
in the colonies numbered 1,200,000, or fifteen 
times as many. The French relied largely 
upon the cooperation of the Indians, and had 
it at first, but as the tide began to turn 
against them they lost much of the aid of 
their savage allies. At home the French 
had a larger army than the English, but the 
latter were better equipped at sea. The con- 
test between the colonies in America soon 
led to a declaration of war between the home 
governments of England and France. This, 
however, again resulted disadvantageously 
for the French in America because the home 
government of France directed most of its 
forces against the British in Europe and 

53^ 



Colonization 

India, where both governments were claim- 
ing important areas, and the French Govern- 
ment sent only 5,000 troops to America. The 
English sent a much larger force and a strong 
fleet, and had, besides, the troops raised in 
the colonies whose population was 1,200,000, 
against a population of 80,000 in the French 
colonies. Although the French held out four 
years against these fearful odds, they were 
finally defeated. 

THE FRENCH DRIVEN OFF THE CONTINENT 

The result of the struggle was that the 
English not only gained the territory in dis- 
pute, that west of the Alleghanies, but also 
that along the St. Lawrence, which they had 
not claimed. The peace treaty between France 
and England, by which the war was termi- 
nated, made in 1763, gave to England all the 
French possessions and claims east of the 
Mississippi River, including Canada with a 
French population of 70,000. France had 
the year before, seeing that she was doomed 
to defeat in America, ceded to Spain her 
claims west of the Mississippi, and including 
the city of New Orleans on its eastern bank. 
5 55 



Expansion of Our Territory 

Thus the entire territory claimed by France 
on the continent of America passed from her 
possession. Spain, which was also a party to 
the treaty of 1763, gave Florida to England 




Territorial Dh'tsion after the Withdrawal of the 
French by the Treaty of 1763. 

in exchange for Cuba, which the latter had 
captured ; and, as a result of that treaty, Eng- 
land controlled all the territory east of the 
Mississippi Eiver, except New Orleans. 



56 



THIRD PERIOD 

INDEPENDENCE AND UNION 

The result of the war between the Eng- 
lisli colonies and those of the French was far 
different from that intended or expected by 
the British Government. While it relieved 
its American possessions of the constant 
menace of the French, who were drawing a 
line of forts and territorial claims on the 
north and west, and greatly increased the 
British area in America, it also at the same 
time drew the colonies into much closer rela- 
tionship than had ever before existed, and 
prepared them for a struggle for independ- 
ence, which was soon to follow. The offi- 
cers and men of the colonial troops from the 
various sections of colonial America had in- 
termingled and there was a new feeling of 
common purposes and common rights. This 
feeling was strengthened and turned against 
the government of the mother country by 
events which soon followed the peace of 1763. 

57 



Expansion of Our Territory 



TROUBLE BETWEEN THE ENGLISH COLONIES AND 
THE MOTHER COUNTRY 

No sooner had the war between the Eng- 
lish and the French ended than the British 
Government determined to carry out plans, 
which it had considered before the war be- 
gan, for the enforcement of the " navigation 
laws " in the colonies. These laws required 
that all trade of the colonies should be with 
the mother country or with other British 
colonies and should be carried in British 
or colonial vessels. It was also determined 
that certain articles produced in the colonies 
should be sent only to English ports, and 
prohibitory duties were laid on sugar and 
molasses from foreign countries or colonies, 
so as to compel the American colonies to 
purchase their sugar from England or from 
the British colonies where sugar was pro- 
duced. These measures interfered greatly 
with the profitable trade of the American 
colonies with the wealthy Spanish colonies 
in the West Indies. In addition to this, the 
British Government determined to locate 
about 10,000 troops permanently in the col- 

58 



Independence and Union 

onies and to levy a small tax on the colonies 
with which to bear a part of the expenses of 
maintaining the troops. This tax at first 
took the form of an act requiring revenue 
stamps issued by the British Government to 
be affixed to certain papers used in legal and 
commercial transactions in the American col- 
onies. These rates of taxation were not 
high, but the colonies protested, asserting 
that they should not be taxed unless they 
were permitted to have a voice in the man- 
agement of the home government through 
representation in Parliament. Taxation, 
however light, without representation, they 
held to be unjust. Colonial legislatures pro- 
tested and a congress of representatives from 
nine colonies met in New York (1765) and 
adopted an address to the home government 
protesting against taxation without represen- 
tation. The stamp act was repealed by Par- 
liament in view of the protests of the col- 
onies, but the following year a measure was 
passed placing a duty on certain imports into 
the colonies, although the rates fixed were 
not expected to produce enough to bear all 
of the expenses of the troops to be located 

59 



Expansion of Our Territory 

in the colonies. This new form of taxation 
was as violently opposed in the colonies as 
the stamp tax had been, and organizations 
were formed throughout the colonies for a 
systematic refusal to import or use the mer- 
chandise so taxed. "Committees of corre- 
spondence" were organized, and letters and 
circulars sent throughout the colonies urging 
opposition to taxation without representa- 
tion, and also protesting against the quarter- 
ing of troops upon the colonies. The colo- 
nial legislative bodies also protested. The 
Parliament, recognizing the vigor of the oppo- 
sition, in 1770 repealed all of the taxes ex- 
cept that on tea, which it insisted should be 
collected. This was opposed by the colo- 
nies, upon the principle that it was taxation, 
no matter how small, without representation ; 
and a cargo of tea on which duty was to be 
collected was (1773) thrown overboard by 
the colonists at Boston. This action and the 
continued protests of the colonies resulted in 
action by Parliament, which intensified the 
feeling in the colonies. One act closed the 
port of Boston to commerce, because of the 
" tea-party " incident. 

60 



Independence and Union 



THE NORTHERN OHIO VALLEY ANNEXED TO 
CANADA 

Anotlier act, and one whicli caused great 
dissatisfaction in tlie colonies, attached to 
tlie Province of Quebec all of the territoiy 
lying between the Ohio and Mississippi Riv- 
ers and the Great Lakes. By this measure, 
enacted by Parliament in 1774, all of the 
country claimed by Virginia, Massachusetts, 
and Connecticut, lying north of the Ohio 
River and extending west of Pennsylvania 
and New York to the Mississippi River, 
was taken from those colonies, although it 
had clearly been given them by their original 
charters. It had been originally held that 
the grants to these colonies, under the word- 
ino- "to the South Sea," extended their 
claims across the entire continent to the Pa- 
cific ; but as the English Government made 
no effort to enforce its claims to territory 
west of the Mississippi, but had accepted the 
Mississippi as its western boundary by the 
peace treaty with France in 1763, the colo- 
nies had since that time only claimed that 
their area extended to that river. But they 

61 




> , ENGLISH COLONIES 

1763-1775 

SCALE OF MILES 




'<i !x^ ^ « IS LANDS .152!-- 

.— -^^ 

7.& »y _^ Long;tud« We«t from cV)' OrfenW ,, 



Independence and Union 

did claim this most vigorously. It was held 
that the original grants had entitled Massa- 
chusetts and Connecticut to a broad strip of 
territory fronting on the Atlantic between 
Lons: Island and the southern coast of what 
is now Maine, and sweeping solidly westward 
to the Pacific. As the ISTew York and Penn- 
sylvania colonies had been established over a 
portion of this, and the English Government 
had given up its claims to the territory west 
of the Mississippi, it was still held that 
Massachusetts and Connecticut were at least 
entitled to that portion of this broad strip 
lying between the western boundaries of 
New York and Pennsylvania and the Missis- 
sippi River. This included the northern 
part of the present States of Ohio, Indiana, 
and Illinois in the claims of Connecticut, and 
the southern part of Michigan and Wiscon- 
sin in the claims of Massachusetts. Virginia 
claimed under her second charter all of the 
territory lying west of her northern and 
southern lines, and included all of the pres- 
ent Kentucky and southern half of Ohio, In- 
diana, and Illinois. In addition to this she 
claimed that the wording of the original 

63 



Expansion of Our Territory 

charter, "up into the land from sea to sea, 
west and northwest," gave her just claims to 
territory extending to the lakes, and also 
the territory between the lakes and the 
Mississippi. ISTew York also claimed certain 
territory west of her present boundary-line 
and lying within the area in question. 

When, therefore, the British Parliament 
by the act of 1774 attached to the Province 
of Quebec all of the territory between the 
Ohio at the south and the Mississippi at the 
west, including the present States of Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan, it 
took fi'om these three colonies a vast body of 
the finest lands of America, which the colo- 
nies felt was justly their own. This act by 
the British Parliament added greatly to the 
dissatisfaction in the colonies, and stimulated 
the development of plans for revolution. 
Before the year ended a " Congress of Com- 
mittees," composed of committees or delegates 
from all of the colonies except Georgia, met 
at Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia (September 
5, 1774), and became the "First Continental 
Congress." It passed resolutions protesting 
against the closing of the port of Boston, 
64 



Independence and Union 

and adopted a Declaration of Eights, declaring 
tlie people of tlie colony entitled to the rights 
of English citizens, protesting also against 
taxation without representation, and against 
the retention of a standing army in their 
midst, and calling for a meeting of another 
Congress in May, 1775, in case no redress of 
grievances should be granted meantime. Be- 
fore that date the assembled colonists on the 
village green of Lexington, near Boston, had 
been fired upon by British troops, and the 
war between the colonies and the mother 
country had begun. 

BRITISH TERRITORY IN AMERICA AT THE BEGIN- 
NING OP THE REVOLUTION 

The American territory claimed by the 
British at the beginning of the Revolution in 
1776 extended from the Gulf of Mexico at 
the south to the Arctic waters at the north, 
and from the Atlantic on the east to the Mis- 
sissippi at the west. Florida had come into 
possession of the English by the treaty of 
1763, being given by the Spanish Govern- 
ment in exchange for Cuba, which the British 
had taken during the war with France over 
65 



Expansion of Our Territory 

the colonial possessions in America, in which 
Spain had acted as the ally of France, and 
thus subjected her possessions to British 
attack. It had been divided into two dis- 
tinct provinces, the peninsula being called 
East Florida. The section lying west of the 
Chattahoochee and Apalachicola Rivers was 
enlarged by the addition of a strip of terri- 
tory from the Georgia colony at the north 
and called West Florida, and rapidly ac- 
quired an English population. The British 
territory on the North American continent 
in 1776, then, included East and West Flori- 
da, all of the thirteen colonies, the Canadian 
territory ceded by France at the north and 
w^est of the colonies, Newfoundland, Nova 
Scotia, and the Hudson Bay country, which 
had been explored and taken possession of 
by the Hudson Bay Company, an English 
fur-trading organization. The colonies which 
united their interests and forces in the war 
against the mother country were New Hamp- 
shire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Is- 
land, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, 
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Caro- 
lina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Canada, 



Independence and Union 

on the north, was chiefly occupied by French, 
who had but recently been at war with the 
British colonies, and therefore had little in 
common with them ; and Florida at the 
south had been Spanish territory until a re- 
cent date, and therefore was not sufficiently 
in sympathy with the other colonies to fall 
in line with them, though there was strong 
hope at one time that West Florida would 
do so. 

THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION 

The history of the struggle of the thirteen 
colonies lying between Florida and Canada, a 
struggle by which they acquired their inde- 
pendence, need not here be related in detail. 
The purpose of this work is chiefly to deal 
with the history of territorial acquisition and 
its transition into the present political divi- 
sions. The story of the Eevolution is well 
known, and is available to every citizen 
and reader. A few leading facts, how- 
ever, must be told, because of their relation 
to the question of the area involved in that 
struggle. 

The military plan of the British was to 
occupy the chief cities, and to divide the 
67 



Expansion of Our Territory 

allied colonies by taking possession of the 
Hudson Valley. If they could drive a 
wedge of troops up the Hudson and along 
Lakes George and Champlain to Canada, 
they would not only surround and hem in 
New England, but cut it off from relation 
with that other troublesome center of revolu 
tion, Virginia. The Second Continental Con 
gress, which met in Philadelphia, May 10 

1775, on June 14 determined to raise a con 
tinental army, and named George Washing 
ton, Esquire, of Virginia, as its command 
er. He arrived at Cambridge, near Boston 
July 3 of that year, and began the forma 
tion, equipment, and training of an army 
During the entire summer, fall, and winter, 
the British commander in Boston sat quietly 
at his post, seeing these preparations go on 
without taking action, and on March 5, 

1776, awoke to find Washington entrenched 
on Dorchester Heights, in such a command- 
ing position that there remained nothing for 
the British forces but to evacuate and repair 
to Halifax. 

Washington, who saw that New York 
was the real strategic center, since it com- 
^68 



Independence and Union 

manded the great entrance to tlie interior, 
hastened there in April, and in the follow- 
ing June the British war-ships began to 
gather round him. On July 4 the Conti- 
nental Congress adopted the Declaration of 
Independence, declaring the thirteen colonies 
no longer colonies, but free and independent 
States. From that day each colony assumed 
the name of State, and the Union, which 
had been known as "The United Colonies," 
became known as "The United States of 
America." A committee was appointed and 
directed to prepare articles of confederation 
for the government of the colonies. In 
Ausrust the British forces at New York had 
become strong enough to justify an attack 
upon the colonial forces, and Washington 
was compelled to abandon the important 
strategic line of the Hudson and withdraw 
to Philadelphia, the seat of the Government 
of the newly founded United States. From 
that point, however, he made his historic 
crossing of the Delaware on the night of 
Christmas, 1776, attacking the British forces 
which had leisurely followed him from New 
York, taking Trenton at the point of the 

69 



Expansion of Our Territory 

bayonet, and afterward Princeton, and re- 
gaining control of New Jersey. 

The following spring (1777) the British 
put into operation their plan for taking pos- 
session of the valley of the Hudson. One 
body of troops was to move up the Hudson, 
another was to move down Lake Champlain 
and Lake George, and another down the Mo- 
hawk Valley, and they were to meet mid- 
way and thus cut off New England, and ef- 
fectually split open the new Union. They 
believed that New York had a strong ele- 
ment still loyal to England, and would not 
be difficult to control, and the strong Quaker 
element in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, 
they thought, would minimize the difficulty 
of controlling that section. But their ex- 
pectations were not realized. The three 
bodies of troops in the Hudson Valley were 
one by one defeated, partly by the colonial 
forces and partly by the people of the coun- 
try through which they passed, and the at- 
tempt to cut the colonies into two sections 
was a failure. The British felt, however, 
that if they could capture the " capital " of 
the new nation it would be an important 
70 



Independence and Union 

move, and capture it they did, entering 
Philadelphia in September, 1777. Congress 
thereupon removed to York, Pa., and Wash- 
ington to Valley Forge, where that terrible 
winter was spent. In the following spring 
(1778) the British returned to New York, 
finding no advantage in retaining Philadel- 
phia, especially as New York was a much 
more important strategic point. 

Meantime the United States had ob- 
tained the cooperation of France, and this 
gave them new strength and courage. In 
the spring of 1778 they began a series of 
operations for the recovery of the territory 
between the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and 
the Great Lakes, which the English had add- 
ed to Quebec by the act of 1774. George 
Rogers Clarke, a young Kentuckian, was 
given permission to carry out a plan which 
he had developed. Gathering a small force 
of men at Pittsburg, a few small boats, and 
a few pieces of light artillery, he moved 
down the Ohio, up the Wabash, and then 
up the Mississippi River, taking possession 
of the British posts and forts, while another 
force did likewise on the Mississippi below 
6 71 



Expansion of Our Territory 

the mouth of the Ohio, and before the Brit- 
ish fully realized what was happening the 
country west of the Alleghanies had been 
taken possession of by the American forces. 

The plan of dividing the forces of the 
United Colonies by occupying the Hudson 
having failed, and the alert Americans hav- 
ing meantime occupied the valuable western 
territory, the British formed a new plan, to 
make their attack from the south, where pop- 
ulation was less dense than at the north, and 
where it was believed there would be greater 
aid from the "loyalists," and to gradually 
move northward until they had occupied the 
country. So they sent troops by sea to Sa- 
vannah late in 1778, and easily took that 
place, and for more than a year operated in 
Georgia and the Carolinas until they had 
them perfectly under control. Meantime the 
Americans were beginning to be successful 
at sea against the British, and these successes 
strengthened the courage of those on land. 
In 1780 the people of the western part of 
the Carolinas and Virginia organized bodies 
of mounted riflemen, who soon checked the 
British forces and plans for occupying that 
72 



Independence and Union 

section. Cornwallis, the commander of tlie 
British forces in the south, then determined 
to move northward and join another body of 
British troops operating in Virginia. He 
was, however, intercepted by a body of 
American and French troops under Lafay- 
ette, was forced to entrench himself at 
Yorktown, on the peninsula between the 
Chesapeake and James River, and before he 
was able to extricate himself a French fleet, 
brought from the West Indies, had cut off 
the possibility of retreat by water. Here he 
remained hemmed in by land forces at the 
front and hostile vessels at the rear, until 
Washington and his troops arrived in Octo- 
ber, 1781, when he surrendered, and the war 
was at an end. 

FORMATION OF THE CONFEDERATION 

Practically the entire Revolutionary War 
was carried through under the Continental 
Congress, which remained in almost continu- 
ous session from the adoption of the Declara- 
tion of Independence until near the close of 
the war. The committee appointed to frame 
articles for a confederation reported a plan 
73 



Expansion of Our Territory 

July 12, 1776, but Congress did not finally 
act until November 15, 1777, wlien tbe Ar- 
tides of Confederation were submitted to tbe 
States, and while ten of the States promptly 
acted upon them, it was not until March, 
1781, seven months before the surrender of 
Cornwallis, that the last State, Maryland, ra- 
tified the Articles of Confederation, and they 
were put into force. From that date Con- 
gress was acting under a written form of gov- 
ernment which all the States had authorized 
and bound themselves to accept and support. 

DETERMINING THE BOUNDARIES OF THE NEW 
UNION 

One of the first things considered at the 
close of the Revolution was the determination 
of the territory to which the successful Ameri- 
cans should be entitled. A commission consist- 
ing of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John 
Jay, and Henry Laurens was named to meet 
representatives of the English Government at 
Paris in 1782, and they were instructed to con- 
sult with and be guided by the wishes of the 
French court, France having been the ally of 
the United States in the war just ended. 
74 



Expansion of Our Territory 

It was felt tliat tlie Americans were en- 
titled to all of tlie territory wliicli they had 
occupied west of the Alleghanies, and ought 
to insist upon all that originally granted to 
the colonies in their charters. It soon be- 
came apparent, however, that the represent- 
atives of the French Government would not 
sustain them in this claim. Count de Ver- 
gennes, the chief representative of the French 
Government, proposed that the western line 
of the United States should follow the Al- 
leghanies from Pennsylvania southward as 
far as the mountains extended, and thence 
due south to the boundary of Florida ; that 
the territory between the Ohio, the Great 
Lakes, and the Mississippi should remain in 
the possession of the English ; and that the 
section south of the Ohio between the Al- 
leghanies and the Mississippi should be con- 
sidered neutral territory, to be set aside for 
the Indians, and be under joint protection of 
the United States and Spain, which then held 
the territory west of the Mississippi. This 
proposition was indignantly rejected by the 
American commissioners, who disregarded 
their instructions to consult with the French, 
76 



Independence and Union 

and entered upon separate negotiations with 
the English without taking the French fur- 
ther into their confidences. 

By dint of insistence they finally obtained 
terms by w^hich the Mississippi was made the 
boundary on the west, Florida on the south, 
the highlands dividing the St. Lawrence and 
the Atlantic watershed on the northeast, a 
line drawn through the middle of Lakes On- 
tario, Erie, and Huron at the north, thence 
through Lake Superior to a point north of 
Isle Royale, thence through the Long Lake 
and the water connections to the Lake of the 
Woods at the northwest, and thence due west 
to the Mississippi, w-hich w^as then supposed 
to extend as far north as the Lake of the 
Woods. 

This gave to the Americans all of the ter- 
ritory which they had ever claimed and the 
section west of Lake Superior to which the 
colonists had made no other claim prior to 
the Revolution except that somewhat vague 
one of Virginia based upon her original char- 
ter, which used the term "up into the land 
west and northwest." At the southwest the 
line fixed by the agreement included the 
77 




78 



Independence and Union 

strip of country whicli had been taken from 
Georgia by the British Government and an- 
nexed to western Florida after Florida came 
into possession of the British Government in 
1763. The English were not insistent upon 
maintaining the northern boundary-line of 
West Florida because the Spanish had in- 
vaded the province and obtained possession 
of a part of its territory, and so weakened 
the English control that the retrocession of 
all Florida to Spain v/as then probable, and 
actually occurred in the following year, 1783. 
Spain for many years afterward claimed that 
the northern section of West Florida was 
transferred to her by the British transfer of 
Florida to Spain, and not to the United 
States, but the matter was finally adjusted 
by negotiation in 1798, when Spain aban- 
doned her claim to the area and the United 
States established a Territorial government 
for it. 

Hence the treaty between the Americans 
and the English, concluded in preliminary 
form in 1782 and completed in 1783, gave 
to the Americans two sections — one at the 
northwest and one at the southwest — which 

79 



Independence and Union 

were not included in tlie recognized boundary 
of the colonies in the closing years of British 
control, and also all that territory between 
the Ohio, the Great Lakes, and the Missis- 
sippi which Parliament had annexed to Que- 
bec by the act of 1774. 

The conclusion of the peace treaty with 
Great Britain in 1783 gave to the Americans 
an area bounded on the west by the Missis- 
sippi, on the south by Florida, and on the 
north by the Great Lakes and the ridge 
between the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic. 
Their neighbors were the Spanish on the south 
and the west and the English on the north. 



81 



rOUKTH PEEIOD 

WESTEKN LANDS CEDED TO THE COMMON 
UNION 

One of the first questions whicli con- 
fronted the thirteen new States when they 
came to take up the subject of a common 
Union was that of the western land. It 
arose to vex the Continental Congress in its 
deliberations and attempts at united action 
and definite agreements even during the Rev- 
olutionary period, and in 1779 that body 
passed a resolution recommending to the 
States claiming land in the west that they 
forbear issuing land warrants for unappropri- 
ated lands during the continuation of the war. 
At that time Georgia claimed that her area 
extended in a line due west to the Missis. 
sippi ; South Carolina claimed a narrow strip 
of land west of her present borders extending 
to the Mississippi ; North Carolina claimed a 
82 



Lands Ceded to the Union 

broad strip to the Mississippi including what 
is now Tennessee ; Virginia claimed all of the 
countr}^ west of her northern and southern 
borders west to the Mississippi and indefi- 
nitely to the northwest as far north as the 
lakes and even west of them; Connecticut 
and Massachusetts claimed each a long, nar- 
row strip from western Pennsylvania and 
New York to the Mississippi Eiver. New 
York also claimed territory at her west and 
southwest extending from the source of the 
Great Lakes to the Cumberland Mountains, 
claiming this partly under an old charter, 
partly through treaty with Indian tribes, and 
partly by claims of the Dutch. 

Thus the claims overlapped each other in 
many particulars, and were liable to give se- 
rious trouble in adjustment. 

Besides this, and even more important, 
was the fact that certain of the States which 
had no western land claim felt that they 
should not be required to help to develop 
the western lands of their more fortunate 
neighbors, and refused to enter the Union 
until the other States should ag-ree to cede 
their western land to the common Union. 

83 



Expansion of Our Territory 

Maryland was especially insistent npon this, 
and it was her sturdy refusal to accept the 
Articles of Confederation without this prece- 
dent which finally led to this action. New 
York ceded her western claims to the Union 
in 1781 ; Virginia all of that lying north of 
the Ohio in 1784; Massachusetts in 1785; 
Connecticut in 1786; South Carolina in 1787; 
North Carolina in 1784 and 1790 ; and Georgia 
in 1802. The Connecticut Act of Cession re- 
tained the ownership of about 3,600,000 acres 
of land extending 120 miles west of the State 
of Pennsylvania, now a part of Ohio, though 
ceding jurisdiction over it to the United 
States. This land thus retained by Connec- 
ticut as a basis of her school fund became 
known as the " Western Reserve," and juris- 
diction over it was in 1800 ceded to the 
United States. Virginia also retained about 
8,700,000 acres in the southern part of what 
is now Ohio for use as military bounty land, 
though ceding territorial jurisdiction to the 
United States over all of it. 

By these generous concessions on the part 
of the States of their western land claims, 
all questions of conflicting jurisdiction were 
84 



Expansion of Our Territory 

terminated, and a magnificent area ceded 
to tlie common government, from whicli it 
might create new States of equal standing in 
the Union with those which had ceded the 
territory. The area which is now the State 
of Maine was at that time a province of Mas- 
sachusetts, and that which now forms the 
State of Vermont was claimed by the State 
of New York, although the people occupying 
it had declared their independence of New 
York, and in 1777 petitioned the Continental 
Congress for admission into the Union as an 
independent State. 

THE "INDEPENDENT STATE OF FRANKLAND" 

The first effort for the establishment of a 
State government in this western territory 
was made by a community of settlers on the 
Watauga and Cumberland Rivers, on the 
western lands of North Carolina, and extend- 
ing across the line into the western territory 
of Virginia. This community was dissatis- 
fied with the action of the North Carolina 
Legislature by which the western territory 
was, in 1784, ceded to the Union, and pro- 
ceeded to set up an independent organ- 
86 



Lands Ceded to the Union 

ization, to whicli they gave the name of 
the "State of Frankland," or "Franklin." 
Alarmed by this action, the North Carolina 
Legislature repealed the act by which the 
territory had been ceded to the Union. The 
young State, however, sent a delegate to the 
Congress, but he was not admitted. A long 
struggle followed. North Carolina attempting 
to enforce her control, and there were divi- 
sions among the people of Frankland on the 
question of independence or a return to alle- 
giance to North Carolina. This resulted in 
the defeat of the officers of the State, and 
finally terminated its existence, and in 1790 
the Leo^islature of North Carolina asrain ceded 
its western territory to the common Union, 
including with it the area which had claimed 
existence as the "Independent State of 
Frankland." The question as to whether 
the name adopted for this proposed State 
was Franklin or Frankland has never been 
satisfactorily settled. By some it is claimed 
that it was called " Frankland," meaning the 
land of the Franks, or freemen ; while by 
others it is claimed that it was called " Frank- 
lin," after Benjamin Franklin, and it is as- 
7 87 



Expansion of Our Territory 

serted that letters were sent to Franklin by- 
leading men of the community stating that 
the State had been named for him, and ap- 
pealing to him for aid in obtaining its recog- 
nition by the Congress. It is stated on good 
authority that both names were used in the 
official documents of the State during its 
brief and troubled history* 

FIRST STEPS IN STATE MAKING FROM COMMON 
TERRITORY 

The first step taken authoritatively for 
the establishment of government in the 
western territory was by the Congress of the 
Confederation. Following the cession by 
Virginia of her northwest lands in 1784, 
propositions were offered for dividing the 
western territory into seventeen States, and 
a committee was appointed, with Jefferson 
at its head, to frame a definite measure for 
the government of this area. He reported a 
measure for the creation of ten new States 
from the territory north of the Ohio, some of 
the names being borrowed from the Greek, 
some from the Latin, and some from Indian 
names. The names proposed were : For the 



Expansion of Our Territory 

tongue of land between Lakes Huron and 
Michigan, " Cheronesus " ; for that bounded 
by the Wabash, Ohio, and Mississippi Eivers, 
" Polypotamia " ; for that lying farther north 
between the Ohio, Mississippi, and the lakes, 
" Metropotamia." Other names proposed 
were " lUinoia," " Assenissippia," " Pelesipia," 
" Michigania," "Saratoga," "Sylvania," and 
" Washington." A code of laws was framed 
which should govern each State until it had 
a population of 20,000, when it should ac- 
quire the right of self-government. A propo- 
sition that slavery should be abolished in the 
area in question after the year 1800 was 
stricken out during consideration, and the 
act then passed. 

THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY ORGANIZED 

Three years later, however, the act above 
described was repealed, and an act providing 
for the government of the " Territory of the 
United States Northwest of the Ohio" was 
passed. It provided for the appointment of 
a governor and secretary by Congress, and 
stipulated that so soon as there should be 
5,000 male inhabitants, they might elect and 
90 



Lands Ceded to the Union 

organize a legislature and elect a delegate to 
Congress. It also provided that there should 
be formed from the territory not less than 
three nor more than five States, to be admitted 
to the Union when they should have not less 
than 60,000 free inhabitants. It further pro- 
vided that slavery should not exist in the 
territory in question, and that the law of 
primogeniture (by which the eldest son suc- 
ceeds to his father's real estate) should not 
exist, but that the estates of a person dying 
intestate should be equally divided among 
his children or next of kin in equal degree. 

The passage of this act, historically known 
as "The Ordinance of 1787," was immedi- 
ately followed by a movement of population 
to that section, and it is estimated that 20,000 
people from east of the Alleghanies passed 
down the Ohio and made homes for them- 
selves along its northern banks in the first 
year after the organization of the government 
of the Territory Northwest of the Ohio. 
Arthur St. Clair was made Governor, and 
Winthrop Sargent Secretary early in 1788, 
and the first Territorial government in the 
common territory was thus established. 
91 



Expansion of Our Territory 

ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION 

About this time occurred an event in the 
history of the Union which, while it had no 
direct relation to the question of area, is so 
important in its assurance of the permanence 
of the Union that it should not be passed by 
without at least a brief mention. The union 
of the colonies which followed the Declaration 
of Independence was a Confederation, without 
an executive officer, a judicial system, or the 
power to raise national funds for national pur- 
poses. Congress was the sole governing body, 
and had no power to enforce its acts. It 
could recommend to the States that they raise 
funds for the common defense and other 
national purposes, the requisitions for funds 
being in proportion to the valuation of the 
land in the several States ; but the Congress 
had no power to levy and collect taxes or 
otherwise raise funds for the common Gov- 
ernment. In some cases the States supplied 
their proper proportion of the funds called 
for by the Congress, and in some cases they 
did not. Each State fixed its own rates 
of duty on goods entering its border, both 
92 



Lands Ceded to the Union 

those from abroad and those from the other 
colonies. 

This form of government soon grew very- 
unsatisfactory, and it became apparent that a 
Union of this character could not continue 
permanently. As a result, the Congress rec- 
ommended in 1787 that a convention of 
delegates from the States be held "for the 
sole and express purpose of revising the 
Articles of Confederation, and reporting to 
Congress and the several legislatures such 
alterations and provisions as, when agreed to 
by Congress and confirmed by the States, 
shall render the Federal Government ade- 
quate to the exigencies of government and 
the preservation of the Union." This recom- 
mendation was complied with, the convention 
of delegates met in Philadelphia in May, 
1787, and after a long and careful discussion 
framed an instrument which provided an ex- 
ecutive officer (a President), a Congress com- 
posed of two bodies, a judicial system, and a 
system of raising funds for the use of the 
common Union, and this became the Consti- 
tution under which the United States has, 
with some amendments, adopted at various 
93 



Expansion of Our Territory- 
dates, existed for more than a century. It 
was agreed to by Congress and was ratified 
by the necessary number of States in 1788, 
and the new Government under it began in 
1789 with George Washington as President, 
thus assuring the permanence of the Govern- 
ment and the closer relation of the States 
composing the Union. North Carolina and 
Rhode Island delayed ratification until several 
months after the organization of the Govern- 
ment, but finally ratified, North Carolina in 
November, 1789, and Rhode Island in May, 
1790. 

A GOVERNMENT FOR THE TERRITORY SOUTH OP 
THE OHIO 

The first step for the formation of a gov- 
ernment for the territory west of the Alle- 
ghanies had occurred under the Congress of 
the Confederation by the jD^ssage of the 
Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the 
Territory Northwest of the Ohio. The next 
step for the government of a part of that area 
occurred in 1790, when the first Congress 
under the Constitution passed an act for the 
government of the "Territory South of the 
94 



Lands Ceded to the Union 

Ohio." In that year (1790) the State of 
North Carolina, which had withdrawn the 
cession of her western territory because of 
the establishment of the Independent State 
of Frankland, again passed an act ceding the 
territory west of her present western bound- 
ary to the common Union. An act was 
promptly passed by Congress accepting the 
cession and establishing a territorial form of 
government for the area ceded. The name 
given to this section was "The Territory 
South of the Ohio River." The general pro- 
visions of the act were similar to those under 
which the Territory Northwest of the Ohio 
River had been organized in 1787, with a 
single but important exception. That excep- 
tion was the clause relative to slavery. 

The act creating the Territory North- 
west of the Ohio, as already noted, pro- 
vided specifically that slavery should never 
exist in that area. In contradistinction to 
this, the act by which North Carolina ceded 
the area in 1790 provided in equally explicit 
terms that " no regulations made or to be 
made by Congress shall tend to emancipate 
slaves " in the Territory in question, and the 

95 



Expansion of Our Territory 

Territory was accepted and government estab- 
lished by Congress in accordance with these 
terms. This was the beginning of a long 
series of steps by which free and slave States 
were admitted alternately into the Union, 
with the purpose of maintaining as nearly as 
practicable an equality in the number of slave 
and free States and of their power in Con- 
gress. A clause prohibiting slavery had been 
inserted in the ordinance creating the Ter- 
ritory Northwest of the Ohio, and a clause 
prohibiting its restriction by national legisla- 
tion was inserted in the act establishing the 
Territory South of the Ohio. In the admis- 
sion of States for many years thereafter free 
and slave States alternated in the order of 
their admission. 

By these two acts of 1787 and 1790 a ter- 
ritorial form of government was established 
for practically all of the western territory 
which had been ceded to the common Union 
up to that time. The small area at the ex- 
treme south of Georgia was not included, as 
it was still in dispute with Spain. Georgia 
did not cede her western territory until 1802, 
and it was not, therefore, included in the Ter- 
96 



Lands Ceded to the Union 

ritory South of the Ohio. The western part 
of Virginia, although often spoken of as hav- 
ing been part of that Territory, was not so 
included, but remained a county of Virginia 
until its admission as the State of Kentucky 
in 1792. 

The long, narrow strip of land lying just 
south of the territory ceded by North Caro- 
lina, which had been ceded to the Union by 
South Carolina in 1787, was not included in 
the Territory South of the Ohio. It appears 
to have remained without a definite form of 
government until Georgia ceded her western 
territory to the United States in 1802, when 
the part lying north of Georgia was ceded to 
that State and the part lying north of the 
area ceded to the Union by Georgia was in- 
corporated with that area and thus became part 
of the territory of Mississippi. The fact that 
South Carolina held, as a part of her territory, 
this long, narrow strip only fourteen miles 
wide and extending westwardly to the Missis- 
sippi was due to the fact that the transfer of 
South Carolina's western area, ceded to the 
colony of Georgia by King George II in 1732, 
named as the boundary-line between South 

97 



Lands Ceded to the Union 

Carolina and Georgia ^'the Savannah River 
to the Tugaloo and along the Tugaloo to its 
head." As it afterward developed that the 
head of the Tugaloo was fourteen miles south 
of the northern boundary of South Carolina, 
that colony continued to claim this narrow 
strip of territory extending to the Mississippi 
as its own, and ceded it to the United States 
in 1787. The portion lying north of the State 
of Georgia was then attached to Georgia and 
the portion lying north of the territory ceded 
by Georgia to the United States was attached 
to that territory and thus became a part of the 
Territory of Mississippi and subsequently a 
part of .the States of Alabama and Mississippi. 

L. G; V. 



99 



FIFTH PEPJOD 

THE FOKMATION OF I^EW STATES 

A TEMPOEARY government having been 
provided for the common territory lying west 
of the Alleghanies, attention was turned to 
the appeals already being made by sundry 
communities for admission as States of the 
Union. In some cases these appeals had been 
made before the provision of the Territorial 
government in the west, and, in at least one 
case, before the close of the Kevolution. 

VERMONT 

The first new State added to the original 
thirteen was Vermont. The area was origi- 
nally claimed by the colony of New Hamp- 
shire, whose Governor granted large tracts of 
the land to settlers between 1760 and 1763. 
The Governor of New York issued a procla- 
mation claiming the territory as a part of 
100 



The Formation of New States 

that colony, and applied to the King, who 
after some delay sustained his claim. The 
Governor of New York then attempted to 
eject the settlers, who resisted under Ethan 
Allen and others, and the Governor of New 
York issued a proclamation offering a reward 
of j£150 for the capture of Allen and £50 for 
the other leaders. They retorted by offering 
a reward for the capture of the Attorney- 
General of New York. By this time, how- 
ever, the preparations for the Revolution 
caused the colonists to forget their local dif- 
ferences and prepare for the common cause. 
The people of Vermont in 1776 declared 
their independence, and applied to the Con- 
gress for admission to the Confederation, but 
Congress hesitated because of the claims of 
New York; whereupon the people of Ver- 
mont organized a government of their own 
with a constitution modeled upon that of 
Pennsylvania. In 1781 Congress offered to 
admit Vermont with a considerable curtail- 
ment of boundary, but the offer was rejected. 
The Vermonters, however, took part in the 
war for independence, the "Green Moun- 
tain Boys" distinguishing themselves in some 
101 



Expansion of Our Territory 

of tlie hardest-fouglit battles of the Revolu- 
tion. 

In 1790 IN^ew York proposed to relinqmsh 
all claims to the Vermont territory on payment 
of $30,000, and this was agreed to by the 
people of Vermont, who made the payment 
and at once applied for admission into the 
Union, and Vermont was admitted in 1791, 
being the first State added to the original 
thirteen. 

KENTUCKY 

Kentucky was the second State admitted 
to the Union. The area of Virginia lying 
west of the Alleghanies had been from early 
times known as " the Kentucky country," 
from an Indian name for one of its rivers. 
In 1 766 a party of explorers from east of the 
Alleghanies visited what is now southern 
Kentucky, and were soon followed by others. 
In 1769 Daniel Boone and ^ve companions 
from North Carolina visited that section, and 
Boone decided to remain. In 1770 George 
Washington, then a land surveyor, made a 
survey of what is now the northeast corner 
of Kentucky. In 1775 James Harrod, of Vir- 
ginia, with about forty companions, passed 
102 



The Formation of New States 

down tlie Ohio to a point near where Louis- 
ville now stands, and passing to the interior 
established a colony subsequently called Har- 
rodsburg. 

A company from North Carolina estab- 
lished a settlement in the southern part of 
what is now Kentucky, assuming that the 
territory was within the limits of North Caro- 
lina, and disposed of large tracts of land which 
they claimed to have purchased from the In- 
dians. The company was known as the Tran- 
sylvania Company, and the colony was known 
by this name. The colonists having become 
assured that they were within the limits of 
Virginia, sent in 1775 a memorial to the Vir- 
ginia authorities asking to be taken under 
their protection, and the proprietors retorted 
by sending a delegate to the Colonial Con- 
gress, asking that Transylvania be added to 
the number of American colonies, and its dele- 
gate admitted to the Congress. That body, 
through the representations of the Virginia 
members, refused to recognize or seat the 
delegate, and shortly afterward the Virginia 
Legislature established the territory west of 
the Alleghanies as the County of Kentucky. 
8 103 



Expansion of Our Territory 

Later it was organized as tlie District of Ken- 
tucky, and divided into several counties. 

In 1784-85 and 1786 conventions were 
held, whicli recommended a peaceable separa- 
tion from Virginia and tlie establishment of a 
separate State of the Union, and in 1786 the 
Virginia Legislature voted to comply with the 
request. 

Action was delayed by a feeling among 
the people in favor of organizing an inde- 
pendent nationality. The fact that the Gov- 
ernment was about to pass from the Congress 
of the Confederation to the Congress of the 
Constitution also caused delay by Congress 
in acting upon the proposition. Meantime 
Spain, which controlled the territory west of 
the Mississippi and adjacent to the western 
boundary of the proposed new State, secretly 
informed the leading men of that section 
that Kentucky would be given peculiar com- 
mercial favors with the Spanish-American 
territory if they would organize it as an inde- 
pendent nation instead of a State of the 
Union. These and other facts delayed action, 
but the proposition of Spain was rejected and 
application made to Congress, and Kentucky, 
104 



The Formation of New States 

after having held nine conventions favoring 
statehood, was in 1792 admitted as the fif- 
teenth State of the Union. Its population by 
that time had become about 75,000, having 
increased very rapidly after the close of the 
Revolution by immigrants from east of the 
Alleghanies. 

No constitution had been adopted by the 
people when the act of Congress authorizing 
its admission was passed, but that instrument, 
when adopted, contained a clause providing 
that the Legislature of the State should have 
no power to pass laws for the emancipation of 
slaves without the consent of the owners, nor 
without paying the owners full value for them, 
and that no law should be passed preventing 
immigrants from bringing their slaves into the 
State. Thus, while Vermont had come into 
the Union in 1791 without slavery, Kentucky 
came with slavery in 1792. 

TENNESSEE 

The third State admitted to the Union 

was Tennessee. People from North Carolina 

and Virginia had formed settlements on the 

Watauga River as early as 1769, and a local 

105 



Expansion of Our Territory 

goYernment, the Watauga Association, was 
formed in 1772. When North Carolina added 
her western territory to the common Union 
in 1784 the Watauga people formed the inde- 
pendent State of Frankland (or Franklin), as 
has been already described, and applied to 
the Congress for admission to the Confedera- 
tion, but were refused, and North Carolina 
repealed her act ceding the territory to the 
common Union. By 1790 the State of Frank- 
land had ceased to exist, and the territory 
was again ceded to the Union, and Congress 
organized the area as the Territory South 
of the Ohio. In 1796 application was made 
to Congress for admission as a State, a consti- 
tution was framed at a convention held at 
Knoxville, and Tennessee was in that year 
admitted as the sixteenth State of the Union. 
John Se\der, who was the Governor of the 
''Independent State of Frankland," became 
the first Governor of the State of Tennessee. 
It had, when admitted, 67,000 of white popu- 
lation and 10,000 slaves. 

Tennessee was the first State admitted 
from the area which had been organized as a 
Territory before admission as a State. Sub- 
106 



The Formation of New States 

sequently tlie new political divisions were in 
nearly all cases organized first as Territories, 
with ofiicers appointed by the President, and 
required to retain that form of government for 
a considerable time before admission as States. 
The exceptions to this rule were Vermont, 
Kentucky, Maine, Texas, California, and West 
Virginia. 

The usual process by which States were 
formed and admitted to the Union is de- 
scribed by Professor Schouler as follows: 
"An act of Congress enabled a territorial 
convention to meet and frame a constitution 
and State government upon prescribed terms, 
after which a joint resolution (of Congress), 
expressing the national approval of the work 
of the convention, declared the new State ad- 
mitted." The Territorial government which 
preceded the statehood period was formed by 
act of Congress. 

THE TERRITORY OF MISSISSIPPI 

In 1798 the "Territory of Mississippi" 

was established. It consisted of the small 

rectangular area at the extreme southwest of 

the Union which had been cut off from the 

107 



Expansion of Our Territory 

Georgia colony by tlie Britisli Government, 
and added to West Florida after tliat Govern- 
ment came into possession of Florida in 1763 
and divided it into two provinces called East 
Florida and West Florida. The area had 
been included in the territory granted to the 
United States by the British in the peace 
treaty of 1783, but Spain had claimed that 
it was included in the cession of Florida to 
Spain made by the British in that same year. 
As a result, both Spain and the United States 
claimed possession of this area, and a long 
negotiation followed, which was ended in 
favor of the United States in 1798, when the 
area was at once established as "The Terri- 
tory of Mississippi" and Winthrop Sargent 
appointed Governor. It continued a Terri- 
tory in this form until Georgia ceded her 
western territory in 1802, when the bound- 
aries of Mississippi Territory were extended 
over the area so ceded. 

Georgia's cession of her western lands 
seems to have been less strongly marked in 
motives for the welfare of the common Union 
than was that of other States. She delayed 
her cession until 1802, twelve years after all 
108 



Expansion of Our Territory 

the other States had acted ; and when she 
did make the cession it was as a result of an 
agreement made with the National Govern- 
ment that in consideration of such cession the 
Government would pay to the State of Georgia 
the sum of $1,250,000, and also transfer, at 
national expense, the Indian title to about 
25,000,000 acres of land in the portion of 
the State which would remain as the State 
of Georgia. This was to be performed by 
the United States Government " whenever it 
can be peaceably done on reasonable terms." 
About 15,000,000 acres were purchased from 
the Indians and ceded to Georgia soon after 
this agreement, but the Indians refused to 
sell the remainder, and in their council passed 
an act forbidding the sale on pain of death. 
In 1824, however, a party of chiefs, profess- 
ing to act by authority, made a treaty with 
the United States for the transfer of the land, 
and the treaty was ratified by the Govern- 
ment; but when the news reached the In- 
dians they denied the right of the chiefs to 
make the agreement, and executed two of 
them in punishment for their action. A new 
negotiation was opened by the United States, 
110 



The Formation of New States 

and finally an agreement made by which all 
the lands were ceded by the Indians and 
passed to the ownership of the State of 
Georgia. 

The payment of $1,250,000 and the ex- 
tinguishment of Indian title to lands did not 
complete the cost to the United States Govern- 
ment of the western lands of Georgia. That 
State had in 1789 sold certain of her western 
lands, amounting to 13,500,000 acres, to a 
land company for about $200,000, but ques- 
tions about the Indian title to the lands and 
the currency in which the payment was made 
arose, and the Legislature repealed the act. 
In 1795 the purchasers reorganized, and the 
Legislature again sold to four companies 35,- 
000,000 acres of land for about $500,000. 
Charges of corruption in the Legislature were 
made, and so well sustained that a new Legis- 
lature was elected on a distinct pledge to re- 
peal the act, and this was done ; the purchase 
money was returned and the records of the 
transaction publicly burned in front of the 
State-House by order of the Legislature. The 
companies, and especially those who had pur- 
chased land from them, claimed that they 
111 



Expansion of Our Territory- 
were unjustly treated by this and were en- 
titled to damages. After the western lands 
were ceded to the United States by Georgia 
in 1802, holders of the land who had pur- 
chased from the companies appealed to Con- 
gress, but without avail ; in 1810 they ob- 
tained a judgment in their favor in the 
Supreme Court, which held that the sale by 
the State must be sustained, despite the alle- 
gations of corruption in the transaction, and 
that purchasers from the companies were in- 
nocent holders without notice. In 1814 Con- 
gress authorized the sale of the lands, and the 
application of $5,000,000 therefrom for ex- 
tinguishment of the claims. The transaction 
by the Legislature was known as the '' Yazoo 
Frauds," and the claims as subsequently ad- 
justed were known as the "Yazoo Claims." 

Georgia ceded her western territory to the 
Union in 1802, and it was in 1804 attached 
to that area at the extreme southwest already 
described as the Territory of Mississippi ; and 
the combined area became known by that name 
and so continued until its division and the es- 
tablishment of the State of Mississippi from 
the western section and the Territory of Ala- 
112 



The Formation of New States 

bama from tlie eastern section. The long, 
narrow strip of land extending west from the 
State of South Carolina to the Mississippi, 
about fifteen miles in width, which had been 
ceded to the Union by South Carolina, was 
also included within the northern boundaries 
of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, respect- 
ively, and became a part of those States. 

FIRST STATE FORMED FROM THE NORTHWEST 
TERRITORY 

Ohio was the next and fourth member 
admitted to the family of States. A com- 
pany formed in Boston immediately after the 
passage of the Ordinance of 1787 establishing 
the Territory Northwest of the Ohio, and 
called " The Ohio Company," purchased from 
the Government a large tract of land on the 
Musldn2:um, and in 1788 established a settle- 
ment, Marietta, composed chiefly of people 
from Massachusetts. During the next few 
years population rapidly poured in from east 
of the Alleghanies, and it soon became appar- 
ent that the population of the Territory 
Northwest of the Ohio required that that vast 
area be subdivided so that government could 
113 



Expansion of Our Territory 

be more satisfactorily administered. In 1800 
Congress therefore passed an act dividing the 
area into two sections by a line drawn due 
north from the month of the Kentucky River 
to the Canadian line, calling the area west of 
that line Indiana, that east of it still retaining 
the name of the Territory Northwest of the 
Ohio. This eastern section, then, included all 
of what is now Ohio and the eastern part of 
what is now Michigan. The western section, 
called Indiana, included most of the present 
State of Indiana, the western part of Michi- 
gan, all of the present States of Illinois and 
Wisconsin, and the northeast part of Minne- 
sota. William Henry Harrison was made 
Governor of Indiana, and St. Clair retained as 
Governor of the eastern section, which was 
still called the " Territory Northwest of the 
Ohio," with its capital at Chillicothe. 

In 1802 the population of the area now 
known as Ohio having become sufficient to 
justify its admission as a State, an " enabling 
act," enabling or permitting the people of 
that section to " form for themselves a Con- 
stitution and State government," was passed 
by Congress, and a convention held at Chil- 
114 



Expansion of Our Territory 

licothe that year adopted a Constitution 
which went into effect without submission to 
the people. In 1803 Congress passed an act 
declaring that Ohio, by the provision of its 
Constitution, '^ has become one of the United 
States of America." The boundaries of the 
future State of Ohio named by the enabling 
act were substantially those now existing, 
and transferred the jurisdiction of what is 
now eastern Michigan to the Territory of 
Indiana. The family of States after the ad- 
mission of Ohio numbered seventeen. 

By the steps thus traced, the ten^itory 
west of the Alleghanies had been ceded by 
the colonies to the common Union and had 
been organized into five distinct political di- 
visions : the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, 
and Ohio : the Territory of Indiana and the 
Territory of Mississippi. 



116 



SIXTH PERIOD 

EXPANSIOT^" BEGUN THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

The next step in the territorial history of 
the United States was an extremely impor- 
tant one, a step which doubled the area of 
the country and gave to it a magnificent do- 
main from which has since been formed four- 
teen great States. This great event in the 
territorial and political history of the country 
is known as the "Louisiana Purchase," and 
has been designated as the " greatest real es- 
tate transaction known to history." 

CAUSES OF THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 

France, it will be remembered, had origi- 
nally claimed the valley of the Mississippi by 
reason of exploration. Her war with Eng- 
land which grew out of this claim resulted 
unfavorably, and when it became apparent 
that she must give up her American territory, 
117 



Expansion of Our Territory- 
she had in 1762 ceded to Spain, in return for 
certain assistance which that country had 
given her in that war, the territory claimed 
by France, lying west of the Mississippi River 
and with it a small area lying on the east side 
of the Mississippi just above its mouth 
known as " the Island of New Orleans." That 
" Island " was surrounded by water by the 
following circumstances : a bayou or sluggish 
stream connected the Mississippi Eiver, from 
a point near the present site of Baton Rouge, 
with the Amite River, and through that 
stream with Lakes Maurepas and Pontchar- 
train, which were connected by another stream 
with the Gulf of Mexico. This line of water 
connecting the Mississippi with Lakes Maure- 
pas and Pontchartrain had been utilized by 
a French explorer, Iberville, in 1699 in pass- 
ing from the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mex- 
ico and was given the name of the Iberville 
River. (This water-way, since partially filled 
up, is now shown on the maps as "Bayou 
Manchac") Thus the long, narrow, and ir- 
regular-shaped piece of land lying south of 
the Iberville and Lakes Maurepas and Pont- 
chartrain and having the Mississippi on the 
118 



The Louisiana Purchase 

southwest and the Gulf on the east, was at 
that time surrounded by water and was called 
" the Island of New Orleans." It was a low, 
swampy region, but its importance lay in the 
fact that its ownership by the nation which 
also held the country on the west bank of the 
Mississippi gave to that nation absolute con- 
trol of the mouth of the Mississippi, and 
would enable it to determine at its pleasure 
whether the commerce of the United States 
should pass in and out of the mouth of that 
great stream. 

This was an extremely important question 
to the United States as a whole, and espe- 
cially to the new section west of the AUegha- 
nies, in that day when water transportation 
was the only method by which its products 
could be carried to the seaboard. An agree- 
ment had been made in 1795 by the United 
States with the Spanish Government which 
thus controlled the entrance to the Missis- 
sippi, by which the citizens of the United 
States might deposit their merchandise at 
New Orleans and export it thence without 
paying any other duty than a fair price for 
the rent of the buildings in which it was de- 
9 119 



Expansion of Our Territory- 
posited. This agreement, made by treaty in 
1795, also provided that at the expiration of 
the three years for which it was drawn, the 
privilege should be renewed, either at New 
Orleans or some other point on the banks of 
the Mississippi, and at the expiration of the 
three years a tacit permission continued. 

In the year 1800, however, the Spanish 
Government secretly ceded the Louisiana ter- 
ritory, including the island of New Orleans, 
back to France, with which the relations of 
the United States were not altogether satis- 
factory. When this cession became known, 
in 1802, great alarm was felt in the United 
States lest the French Government might ter- 
minate the privilege by which the people west 
of the Alleghanies had this free outlet to the 
Gulf of Mexico, and in October of that year 
the Spanish officer who was still in charge at 
New Orleans announced the termination of 
the privilege of deposit. Resolutions were 
introduced in Congress authorizing the Pres- 
ident to call out 50,000 militia and take pos- 
session of New Orleans, but a substitute was 
adopted appropriating $2,000,000 to be used 
in the purchase of New Orleans, and James 
120 



The Louisiana Purchase 

Mouroe was sent to Paris to cooperate with 
our minister to France, Mr. Livingston, in 
negotiations for the purchase of the island 
and city of New Orleans. By the time of 
his arrival the relations between France and 
England had become such that a war be- 
tween them was probable, and Napoleon, 
seeing that the defense of his new territory 
in America would be difficult, decided to 
offer to sell the whole of it to the United 
States, preferring to sell it to this country 
rather than lose it to his enemy, England. 
The offer resulted in an agreement by the 
American commissioners to purchase the en- 
tire area known as Louisiana, in the form 
ceded by France to Spain in 1762, and receded 
by Spain to France in 1800. The price to be 
paid was $15,000,000, of which $11,250,000 
was to be in six per cent bonds of the United 
States and the remainder to be paid to citi- 
zens of the United States having claims 
against France. This treaty reached Wash- 
ington in July, 1803; a special session of 
Congress was held in October to consider it, 
and after two days of discussion it was 
ratified, and a resolution passed to carry it 
121 



Expansion of Our Territory 

into effect, and the ownership and control of 
this vast territory were turned over to the 
United States before the close of the year 

1803. 

THE NATIONAL AREA DOUBLED BY THE 
PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 

The area of the Louisiana territory thus 
purchased for $15,000,000 was, as recently 
estimated by the Commissioner of the General 
Land Office, 883,072 square miles, or slightly 
more than that of the entire United States 
when the purchase was made, the national 
area prior to that time having been 827,844 
square miles. Thus, in this single purchase 
the area of the country was actually more 
than doubled. A right to the permanent use 
of the waters of the Mississippi to the Gulf 
was thus assured, as the United States, after 
the purchase, became the owner of the terri- 
tory on both sides of that stream from the 
source to the mouth. The poj)ulation of the 
area included in this purchase was estimated 
at 100,000, of whom about 50,000 were 
whites, 40,000 negroes, and 10,000 mulattoes. 
The population of the United States was 
122 



The Louisiana Purchase 

then about 6,000,000, of which number about 
600,000 were in the territory west of the 
Alleghanies. The territory thus obtained is 
greater in area than Great Britain, Germany, 
France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy combined, 
and from it were subsequently formed, in 
whole or in part, fourteen States and Terri- 
tories, which had in 1900 a population of 
15,000,000. 

BOUNDARIES OF THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 

The boundaries of the territory thus ceded 
were extremely indefinite. The treaty of 
cession by France simply ceded the territory 
" with the same extent that it now has in the 
hands of Spain and that it had when France 
possessed it." 

It was supposed by some that the area 
east of the Mississippi included more than 
the island of New Orleans, and by the others 
that it extended at the northwest to the 
Pacific. This view regarding the western 
boundaries does not seem to have been the 
view of President Jefferson, under whose 
administration it was purchased; for in 
November, 1803, he said in a letter to 
123 



Expansion of Our Territory 

Captain Lewis, giving him liis instructions 
for his exploring trip to the Pacific: "The 
boundaries of interior Louisiana are the high- 
lands enclosing all of the waters which run 
into the Mississippi or Missouri directly or 
indirectly, with a quarter breadth on the Gulf 
of Mexico." This general view was after- 
ward accepted and the northwest boundary 
fixed along the summit of the Rocky Moun- 
tains. In the southwest the question of 
boundary soon arose for settlement. The 
Spanish claimed that the western boundary 
included only a very narrow strip of land 
west of the mouth of the Mississippi, while 
the United States claimed that it extended 
to the Rio Grande; and the Sabine River, 
about one-third of the distance from the 
Mississippi to the Rio Grande, was finally 
adopted as the southwestern boundary of the 
Louisiana territory. 

The next step in subdivision of the 
territory of the United States occurred in the 
new area known as the Louisiana Purchase. 
In March of 1804, less than one year after its 
purchase, and but three months after the 
United States had taken possession. Congress 
124 




125 



Expansion of Our Territory 

organized the extreme southern part of the 
Purchase as the "Territory of Orleans," its 
boundaries being substantially those of the 
present State of Louisiana. It remained a 
Territory until 1812, when it was admitted as 
the State of Louisiana, and the remainder of 
the Louisiana Purchase not included in the 
"Territory of Orleans" was called the 
"District of Louisiana." Afterward it was 
made the "Territory of Louisiana" and St. 
Louis was made the capital. 



126 



SEVENTH PEEIOD 

THE MIDDLE WEST SUBDIVIDED — FLORIDA 
PUECHASED 

The next step in subdivision was the 
establishment of the Territory of Michigan 
from the northeastern part of the great 
Territory of Indiana, which included the area 
now known as Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, 
Michigan, and part of Minnesota. This was 
too large an area to be governed as a single 
tract or from a single point, especially in those 
days of slow communication. Its population 
was rapidly increasing, and in 1805 the area 
lying between Lakes Huron and Michigan 
was organized as the Territory of Michigan, 
with William Hull as Governor. The area 
had been under French officers for more than 
one hundred and fifty years, beginning with 
Champlain in 1622 and ending with De 
Cavagnac in 1763 ; then under British offi- 
cials from that date until some years after 
127 



Expansion of Our Territory 

tlie close of tlie Revolution; tlien a part 
of the original Nortliwest Territory under 
Governor St. Clair; tlien a part of the 
Territory of Indiana under William Henry 
Harrison. For several years Michigan proved 
a convenient nucleus to which to attach con- 
tiguous territory for temporary government. 
In 1818 the area lying west of Lake Michigan, 
including what is now Wisconsin and upper 
Michigan, was attached to Michigan for pur- 
poses of government, and in 1834 the area 
between the Mississipj)i and Missouri Rivers 
north of the State of Missouri was also at. 
tached to it, thus bringing within its borders 
the area now known as Michigan, Wisconsin, 
Iowa, Minnesota, and part of North and 
South Dakota. It continued in this form 
until the eastern part was admitted as a State 
in 1837. 

BURR'S ATTEMPT TO ESTABLISH [A NEW 
GOVERNMENT IN THE SOUTHWEST 

About this time occurred an incident which 
threatened a loss of territory to the young re- 
public. Aaron Burr, son of the president of 
the University of New Jersey, and himself 
128 



The Middle West Subdivided 

highly educated, had been by turns an officer 
in the Revolutionary War, a Senator from the 
State of ISTew York, and Vice-President of 
the United States. During his term as Vice- 
President he had killed Alexander Hamilton 
in a duel resulting from a political feud, and 
this event had destroyed his popularity and 
political prospects. In 1805 he developed a 
scheme for the establishment of an independ- 
ent government in the Southwest. He made 
a trip down the Ohio from Pittsburg to New 
Orleans, and after his return began enlisting 
the cooperation of persons in the Mississippi 
Valley. His plans were never clearly stated, 
but were understood to be the seizure of the 
government of Mexico, and, if possible, a 
combination with it of the Louisiana Purchase 
and the States west of the Alleghanies ; to 
make himself King or Emperor of Mexico, 
or, if the western States could be persuaded 
to join with him, to establish a republic with 
himself as its head and New Orleans as its 
capital. 

He organized a flotilla of boats on the 
Ohio, enlisted the cooperation, secret or open, 
of all whom he could persuade to join him, 
129 



Expansion of Our Territory 

made friends by artful scliemes witli as many 
public men as possible, communicating to 
each as mucli or little of his real desio^ns as 
he saw fit. Believing that his former friend, 
the Governor of the Louisiana Territory, 
General Wilkinson, would cooperate with 
him, he sent letters to him by a secret agent, 
but Wilkinson after receiving the letters 
hastened a messenger to Washington to 
notify President Jefferson, notified the Gov- 
ernor of Orleans Territory, in which New 
Orleans was located, and called a meeting of 
the merchants and leading citizens of that 
place and laid the facts before them. The 
President issued a proclamation announcing 
that he had been informed of a plot to in- 
vade Spanish territory and warning citizens 
of the United States not to engage in it, and 
the Legislatures of Ohio and Kentucky au- 
thorized the seizure of Burr's boats, and a re- 
ward was offered for the capture of Burr. 
His forces were soon scattered and he at- 
tempted to escape, but was arrested in Mis- 
sissippi, taken to Richmond and tried on a 
charge of treason and concocting a scheme 
for the overthrow of national authority in the 
130 



The Middle West Subdivided 

western States and Territories ; but proof was 
not sufficiently definite and he was acquitted. 
He soon left tlie country, but found himself 
the object of suspicion in the European coun- 
tries which he visited, and after years of ab- 
sence returned to New York disguised and 
under an assumed name ; and as no further 
action was taken against him, remained there 
in the practise of law and in comparative ob- 
scurity and poverty until his death, which 
occurred on Long Island at the age of eighty. 
Thus two attempts to induce the people 
of the West to sever their allegiance to the 
young nation — the first, made upon the peo- 
ple of Kentucky by the Spanish in the terri- 
tory just west of that section, and the second, 
that of Burr — had utterly failed. 

THE TERRITORY OF ILLINOIS CREATED 

The rapid growth of population in the val- 
leys of the Ohio and Mississippi and the 
Great Lakes soon made it necessary to again 
subdivide that area. By 1809 there were 
30,000 people scattered over the great area 
included within the Territory of Indiana. 
About 20,000 of these were in the eastern 
131 



Expansion of Our Territory 

section, just west of the State of Ohio, and 
were anxious for a division and preparation 
for statehood. Accordingly, in 1809 it was 
given what was called the " second grade of 
territorial government," being established as 
a Territory with a Legislature, and with 
boundaries substantially the same as those 
which the State of Indiana now has. The 
remainder of what had been included within 
its borders was established as a new Territory 
and given the name of Illinois. 

The Territory of Illinois, which was thus 
created in 1809, by the division of the In- 
diana Territory, included what is now the 
States of Illinois and Wisconsin, that part of 
Minnesota which lies east of the Mississippi 
River, and part of the upper peninsula of 
Michigan. The census of 1810 showed that 
it had in that year, one year after the forma- 
tion of the Territory, a population of 12,282, 
in all the area stretching from the Ohio to the 
Canadian line, and from the Mississippi to its 
eastern boundary. Within that area in 1900 
there were 7,000,000 people, or about as many 
as the entire country had in the year in which 
the Territory of Illinois was established. 
132 



The Middle West Subdivided 

THE WAR OF 1813 

The war between England and France, 
whicli had caused Napoleon to give Louisiana 
territory to the United States at a great bar- 
gain, resulted in some other ways to the dis- 
advantage of the United States. Owing to 
the existence of that war, British vessels, 
under the laws of war, captured not only 
French vessels on the high seas, but also 
other vessels engaged in commerce between 
the French colonies and France. To avoid 
this, the products of the French colonies were 
shipped to the United States in American 
vessels and thence reshipped to France and 
elsewhere ; but the British admiralty courts 
decided that such goods could be recaptured 
even though they had been landed in the 
United States. It was also held that Englisli- 
men serving on board of American vessels 
could be seized and impressed into the British 
service. 

As a result of this, large numbers of 
American vessels were captured by the Brit- 
ish, ' and many American sailors impressed 
into the British service on the claim that 
133 



Expansion of Our Territory 

tliey were former Britisli citizens. In tlie 
years wMcli followed hundreds of American 
vessels were seized and thousands of Ameri- 
can citizens impressed into service on British 
vessels, on the claim above described. Acts 
were passed by the Congress of the United 
States restricting and absolutely prohibiting 
the importation of merchandise from England 
or English colonies, and finally prohibiting 
foreign commerce of all kinds ; but these did 
not serve the expected purpose, as American 
vessels still went to sea and were still captured 
by the British, and finally, in 1812, war was 
declared against England. 

The war was partly on land and partly 
on the ocean. That on land was chiefly 
conducted along the border between the 
United States and Canada, and in it the 
American troops did not meet with great suc- 
cess. The British took possession of Detroit, 
also Fort Dearborn, where now Chicago 
stands, and later of most of the coast of Maine. 
The Americans occupied the British forts on 
the west side of the Niagara. The British 
landed a force on the Chesapeake Bay and 
captured Washington, the capital of the na- 
134 



Expansion of Our Territory 

tion ; but after burning the Capitol, Execu- 
tive Mansion, and other public buildings, 
withdrew to their vessels. Meantime, how- 
ever, the Americans, who were expert sailors, 
had been more successful in contests at sea 
with British vessels, and finally, after many 
brilliant victories by the Americans on the 
ocean and Lakes, the war terminated in 1814. 
The opposing forces gave up the captured 
territory, and there were no changes in the 
boundary lines or area of the United States. 

ACTIVITY IN STATE-MAKINQ 

The close of the war was the signal for 
activity in the addition of new States to the 
Union. Even before its close, in the very 
year of its actual beginning, one new State 
had been created, Orleans Territory having 
been in that year admitted under the name of 
the State of Louisiana, and seven years fol- 
lowins: the close of the war six new States 
were admitted. They were Indiana, Mis- 
sissippi, Illinois, Alabama, Maine, and Mis- 
souri. 

The work of transforming the western 
area into States had progressed in distinct 
136 



The Middle West Subdivided 

periods. The first two States admitted were 
permitted to come in without any territorial 
apprenticeship. They were Vermont, and 
Kentucky. Tennessee and Ohio, which came 
in as States in 1796 and 1802, had been re- 
spectively a part of the territory south and 
northwest of the Ohio, and each for a short 
time a separate territory. During the next 
ten years, from 1802 to 1812, the future 
States were being given an apprenticeship as 
Territories. In that time the Territories of 
Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Mississippi, and 
Orleans had been formed. In 1812 began a 
period of activity in State-making. In that 
year the Orleans Territory was admitted as 
the State of Louisiana, followed in rapid 
succession by Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, 
Alabama, Maine, and Missouris — even States 
being admitted in less than a decade. In 
their admission, too, the custom which had 
been established in earlier years of alter- 
nating free and slave territory was followed, 
the order of admission being: Louisiana, 
Indiana ; Mississippi, Illinois ; Alabama, Maine ; 
and Missouri. 



137 



Expansion of Our Territory 



WEST FLORIDA ADDED TO THE NATIONAL AREA 

The years 1810 and 1812 witnessed a 
small and unexpected addition to the terri- 
torial area of the United States. Florida, 
as has already been stated, was originally 
Spanish territory, but had been in 1763 
given by Spain to England in exchange for 
Cuba, which the English had captured during 
the war between England and France in 
which the Spanish Government cooperated 
with France, thus rendering its territory 
liable to seizure by the British. The British 
soon after occupying Florida divided it 
into two provinces, East Florida and West 
Florida. West Florida extended from the 
Chattahoochee and Appalachicola Rivers to 
the Mississippi River above Lakes Pontchar- 
train and Maurepas. It was already peopled 
by English colonists and at that time formed 
the fourteenth British colony south of the 
St. Lawrence. By 1782 the Spanish had 
obtained possession of much of the territo- 
ry, and both East and West Florida were 
re-ceded to Spain by Great Britain in 1783, 
at the same time that she acknowledged the 
138 



The Middle West Subdivided 

independence of the United States and fixed 
the boundaries of the territory which she 
ceded to them. 

The population of West Florida, however, 
was chiefly of English birth or from other 
English colonies, and did not relish the con- 
trol of the Spanish. After the Spanish ter- 
ritory of Louisiana had been ceded to France 
and by France to the United States, the people 
of West Florida desired annexation to the 
United States rather than Spanish control. 
This desire was increased by a rumor that 
the French were contemplating the seizure 
of West Florida. Accordingly a convention 
was held in 1810 and West Florida declared 
a free and independent State, a government 
organized and officers named, and a copy of 
the declaration was sent to the President of 
the United States through the Governor of 
Mississippi. President Madison in October 
of the same year issued a proclamation de- 
claring West Florida under the jurisdiction 
of the United States, and directing the Gov- 
ernor of Orleans Territory to take posses- 
sion. This action was based upon a claim 
that the area was acquired by the Louisi- 
139 



Expansion of Our Territory 

ana Purchase, tlie eastern limits of that pur- 
chase east of the Mississippi having been long 
a matter of dispute. The Governor of Or- 
leans Territory promptly obeyed the Presi- 
dent's direction, hoisting the flag of the 
United States on December 6, 1810, less 
than three months after the people of West 
Florida had declared themselves a free and 
independent State. The annexation called 
forth protests from Spain and England, but 
without result. In 1812 the United States 
took possession of another section immediate- 
ly east of that which they occupied in 1810. 
The Territory of Orleans was admitted as 
the State of Louisiana in 1812, and that part 
of West Florida lying west of the Pearl 
River was added to Louisiana, and the re- 
mainder, lying between the Pearl and Per- 
dido Rivers, was attached to the Territory of 
Mississippi, giving it a frontage upon the 
Gulf of Mexico. The name " Louisiana," by 
which the whole territory ceded by France 
had been formerly known, having been given 
to the new State of Louisiana, the remainder 
of the Louisiana Purchase was then desig- 
nated as " The Territory of Missouri." 
140 



The Middle West Subdivided 

STATE OF INDIANA 

Indiana Territory, which had been cut in 
two in 1809, the eastern part retaining the 
name of Indiana Territory and the western 
part given the name of Illinois Territory, was 
in 1816 admitted as a State with substantially 
its present boundaries. It came in as a free 
State, being a part of the area of the " Terri- 
tory Northwest of the Ohio," which had been 
specifically made free territory by the Ordi- 
nance of 1787. 

STATE OF MISSISSIPPI 

In 1817 the Territory of Mississippi was 
divided into two sections, the eastern part 
established as the Territory of Alabama and 
the western part admitted as the State of 
Mississippi. The line dividing Mississippi 
and Alabama was so drawn as to give to each 
of these a section of the West Florida area, 
and thus to each a Gulf frontage. The 
Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians at that time 
occupied a considerable area in what is now 
the northern part of Mississippi, but were sub- 
sequently removed to the Indian Territoiy. 
Mississippi came in as a slave State, and was 
141 



Expansion of Our Territory 

considered an offset to the free State of 
Indiana, admitted in tlie preceding year. 

STATE OF ILLINOIS 

The next year, 1818, the Territory of 
Illinois, which then included the present 
States of Illinois, Wisconsin, and parts of 
Minnesota and Michigan, was cut in two 
and all of the territory north of the present 
boundary of Illinois was attached temporarily 
to the Territory of Michigan, and the re- 
mainder was admitted to the Union as the 
State of Illinois, with boundaries substantially 
the same as those at present. That section 
had been called the " Illinois Country " from 
the time of its occupancy by the French, and, 
after Clarke had taken possession of it during 
the Kevolutionary War, had been attached to 
Virginia and called the " County of Illinois," 
but was included in the Virginia cession and 
was a part of the area established as the 
" Territory Northwest of the Ohio." 

STATE OF ALABAMA 

Alabama was the next State admitted. 
Most of its area had been a part of the 
142 



The Middle West Subdivided 

Georgia colony, and after being ceded by 
Georgia in 1802, was incorporated with that 
small rectangular section at the extreme 
southwest acquired from Great Britain by the 
peace treaty of 1783, as the Territory of Mis- 
sissippi. To Georgia and Mississippi Terri- 
tory was added on the north the western 
part of the long, narrow strip of land ceded 
to the common Union by South Carolina, 
while there had also been added at the ex- 
treme south a small section of land front- 
ing on the Gulf between the Perdido and 
Pearl Rivers, formerly claimed as a part of 
Florida, which had been taken possession of 
by the United States Government in 1810. 
The new State of Alabama when admitted 
in 1819 thus included within its limits a part 
of the original territory of the colony of 
Georgia, a part of that of the colony of 
South Carolina, a part of the original terri- 
tory of Mississippi as ceded by Great Brit- 
ain in 1783, and a part of the West Florida 
Territory taken possession of in 1812 under 
the claim that it was really a part of the 
Louisiana Purchase. 



143 



Expansion of Our Territory 



THE FLORIDA PURCHASE 

A new and important development oc- 
curred in 1819, being no less than the addi- 
tion of Florida to the territory of the Union. 
It had long been desired, both because of the 
feeling that it would round out the possessions 
of the United States and give it a continuous 
water frontage from Maine to Texas, and also 
because it had been a refuge for escaping 
slaves from Georgia and a source of constant 
friction and frequent hostilities between the 
people of the two sections. Florida, it will 
be remembered, had been constantly in the 
possession of Spain from the discovery until 
1763, when it was ceded to England in ex- 
chano:e for Cuba. In 1783 it was receded to 
Spain, and in 1795 Spain sold West Florida 
to France, and it was claimed by the United 
States as a part of the Louisiana Purchase, 
and finally taken possession of, as already 
described, in 1810. East Florida, which re- 
mained in the possession of Spain, was not 
only a refuge for escaping slaves from Geor- 
gia, but the Spanish permitted the English 
to make it a base of operations for their 
144 



The Florida Purchase 

troops during the war between tlie United 
States and England in 1812-14. In 1814 
Jackson invaded it and captured Pensacola, 
where a British force had established itself. 
During the years which followed there was 
much trouble between the people of Georgia 
and the Indians of Florida, among whom 
escaped slaves had taken refuge, and in 1818 
Jackson again invaded Florida believing that 
he had at least the tacit consent of the Gov- 
ernment to do so. He found there a Scotch 
trader named Arbuthnot and an English ex- 
Lieutenant of Marines, Ambrister, whom he 
believed to be there by the assent of the 
British Government to encourage the Indi- 
ans to hostilities against the people across 
the border of the United States, and he cap- 
tured and executed them. Meantime, the 
slave power was urging the acquisition of 
Florida, both for a protection of the slave 
interests of the adjacent territory and because 
its ownership would give additional slave 
territory, and several offers were made for its 
purchase but declined by Spain. Finally, in 
1819, the Spanish ambassador signed a treaty 
for the cession of Florida in extinction of 
145 



Expansion of Our Territory- 
various American claims for tlie satisfaction 
of which the United States agreed to pay to 
the various claimants the sum of $5,000,000. 
The sum finally paid, including interest, is 
stated by Commissioner Hermann, of the 
United States General Land Office, as $6,- 
489,768. The treaty was not ratified by the 
Spanish until 1821, when the United States 
took possession of Florida and established it 
in 1822 as the Territory of Florida. 

BOUNDARIES OF THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 
DEFINED 

One important feature of the treaty by 
which this cession was made was that it spe- 
cifically defined the boundaries between the 
Louisiana Purchase and the territory held by 
the Spanish at the west and southwest. The 
claim had been made by the United States 
that her purchase of the Louisiana Territory 
included the Texas country, but this was de- 
nied by Spain, who claimed it as a part of 
Mexico. By the Florida cession treaty the 
boundary line between the United States and 
Mexico was fixed at the Sabine Kiver, the 
United States thus abandoning her claim to 
146 



The Florida Purchase 

Texas. In exchange for this, however, Spain 
relinquished her claims on the Pacific coast 
north of the 42d degree of north latitude; 
a fact which proved of importance to the 
United States in later years in establishing 
her claim to the Oregon Territory. It was 
by this agreement that the claims of the 
Spanish west of the Rocky Mountains were 
definitely fixed at what is now the northern 
boundary of California and Nevada. The 
treaty also confirmed the title of the United 
States to West Florida, of which they had 
already taken possession on the claim that it 
was included with the Louisiana cession of 
France. This purchase of Florida was the 
second addition of area to that ceded by 
Great Britain to the colonies in 1783, and 
gave to the United States an undisputed 
water frontao-e from Maine on the east to 
Texas on the west. 

ARKANSAS TERRITORY CREATED 

In the same year that Florida was pur- 
chased a section of the Louisiana Purchase 
lying just north of the new State of Louisiana 
was established as the Territory of Arkansas. 
147 




t;f«:>^._j 



IV^' 



A*^ >^^ 



y 



J 



kS^^i 



\j 




14a 



The Florida Purchase 

As constituted in 1819 it included all of the 
present State of Arkansas and most of tlie 
area now known as Indian Territory and Ok- 
lahoma. Its eastern boundary was the Mis- 
sissippi River and it extended west to the 
western limits of the Louisiana Purchase. 



149 



EIGHTH PEEIOD 

THE SLAVERY QUESTION 11^ ITS EELATION TO 
STATEHOOD 

Maine was tlie next State admitted to the 
Union. During one hundred and forty years 
it had been considered a part of Massachu- 
setts and governed by it, although not con- 
tiguous territory. The territory had in 1606 
been granted by James I to a company of 
English, but they made no permanent settle- 
ment. In 1620 the charter of New England 
was granted; and in 1622 the country be- 
tween the Merrimac and Kennebec Rivers 
had been granted under this charter to Cap- 
tain John Mason and Fernando Gorges. In 
1829 it was divided and the section between 
the Piscataqua and the Kennebec fell to 
Gorges, who established a colony. After his 
death Massachusetts laid claim to the terri- 
tory upon the ground that it had been in- 
cluded in the charter of New England in 
150 



The Slavery Question 

1620. Her claims being disallowed, she pur- 
chased the territory from the heirs of Gorges 
in 1677 for £1,250. In 1691 the charter of 
William and Mary also included Maine in 
the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The 
people of Maine took part in the Kevolution- 
ary War, and soon after its close began to 
agitate the question of separation from Mas- 
sachusetts and the formation of a State, but 
made little progress until after 1800, when 
Maine became " Anti-Federalist," while Mas- 
sachusetts remained Federalist. This diver- 
gence of views increased the desire for a 
separation, to which the Legislature of Massa- 
chusetts finally assented, and in 1820 Congress 
passed an act establishing Maine as a sepa- 
rate State, after one hundred and forty years 
of control by Massachusetts. It was the 
tenth State admitted after the formation of 
the Union, and the twenty -third in the full 
list of States. 

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE AND THE STATE OF 
MISSOURI 

Missouri was the next State admitted after 
Maine. The measures providing for the ad- 
11 151 



Expansion of Our Territory 

mission of these two States were discussed in 
Congress simultaneously and passed within a 
few days of each other ; but as the act with 
reference to Maine established it as a State, 
while that regarding Missouri merely author- 
ized the people to frame a Constitution pre- 
paratory to admission, Maine actually became 
a State in the year preceding that in which 
Missouri was admitted. 

The admission of Missouri was marked by 
a bitter struggle between the opponents and 
supporters of slavery. It involved the ques- 
tion as to whether the great area included in 
the Louisiana Purchase should be free or slave 
territory. This question had been more or 
less discussed in the years following the pur. 
chase, but did not come up for settlement 
when the State of Louisiana was admitted, 
since slavery had been so long a recognized 
institution in that section. But when the 
Territory of Missouri asked admission it was 
felt that the matter must be determined. 
Most of the area of the proposed State lay 
north of the mouth of the Ohio, which 
stream had been considered the northern 
boundary of slave territory, especially as the 
152 



The Slavery Question 

ordinance establishing the Territory North- 
west of the Ohio had forever prohibited 
slavery north of the Ohio River. The strug- 
gle in Congress was long and exciting, and 
public meetings were held in the North and 
South advocating the views of those sections 
respectively with reference to this matter. 
The House passed a bill admitting Missouri 
without slavery, and the Senate struck out 
the anti-slavery clause. A bill admitting Mis- 
souri with slavery was attached to a bill ad- 
mitting Maine without slavery, with the hope 
of strengthening the slavery forces. After a 
long struggle a compromise was proposed 
separating the Maine and Missouri measures, 
admitting Missouri as a slave State with a 
distinct declaration that slavery should be 
forever prohibited in the remainder of the 
Louisiana Purchase north of 36° 30' of north 
latitude, except as to Missouri, which was 
north of that line. This proposition, known 
in the history of the country as " The Mis- 
souri Compromise," was accepted, and the 
Maine and Missouri bills passed. Maine be- 
came a State at once, and in the following 
year Missouri, having formed a Constitution 
153 



Expansion of Our Territory 

providing that the Legislature should not en- 
act laws interfering with slavery, was ad- 
mitted in 1821. 

The sectional feeling over this struggle 
was intense, and a member of Congress said 
in the debate that " a fire had been kindled 
which all the waters of the ocean can not 
put out, and which only seas of blood can 
extinguish " ; a remark which proved true in 
the Civil War which began forty years later. 
The population of the great Territory of Mis- 
souri, as the Louisiana Purchase north of 
Arkansas was then known, was, in 1820, 66 j- 
500, and a large proportion of this number 
were included in the State of Missouri. The 
remainder of the Territory continued for 
some time to be known as the Territory of 
Missouri, but the name was subsequently 
changed to " The Indian Country." The west- 
ern boundary of the State when admitted 
extended in a line due north from the south- 
ern to the northern boundary, but in 1836 was 
so changed as to follow the Missouri River 
northwestwardly from the point at which it 
touched that river, the present location of 
Kansas City, to its northern boundary line. 
154 



The Slavery Question 

BALANCE OF POWER BETWEEN FREE AND SLAVE 
STATES 

During the next fifteen years no new 
States were admitted. The struggle over the 
slavery question had been fierce, and the ad- 
dition of Missouri as a slave State established 
an exact balance between the free and slave 
States in the Senate, in which each State was 
entitled to two members. There were twenty- 
four States. Seven of the original thirteen 
abolished slavery either prior to or shortly 
after the union, viz. : New Hampshire, Massa- 
chusetts, Connecticut, Khode Island, New 
York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.^ Five 
of the States subsequently admitted were also 
without slavery, viz. : Vermont, Ohio, Indi- 

1 The Massachusetts constitution of 1780 declared that " all 
men are born free and equal," and the courts held this to be an 
abolition of slavery in that State. Pennsylvania passed a gradual 
emancipation act in 1780, and similar action was taken in New 
Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island between 1780 and 
1785, by New York in 1799, and New Jersey in 1804. The 
total number of colored persons of African descent in these 
States is given by the census of 1790 at 67,424, out of a total of 
757,208 in the entire United States. Of this number 25,978 
were in New York, 14,185 in New Jersey, 10,274 in Pennsylva- 
nia, 5,572 in Connecticut, 5,463 in Massachusetts, and 4,355 in 
Rhode Island. 

155 



Expansion of Our Territory 

ana, Illinois, and Maine, making the total 
number of free States twelve. Six of the 
original thirteen were slave States, viz. : Dela- 
ware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, 
South Carolina, and Georgia ,• and six of the 
States subsequently admitted permitted sla- 
very, viz. : Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, 
Mississippi, Alabama, and Missouri, making 
the total number of slave States twelve. The 
area of the twelve free States was 302,000 
square miles, that of the twelve slave States 
523,000 square miles. In 1820 the twelve 
free States had 5,152,000 population; the 
twelve slave States had 4,486,000, of which 
number 1,600,000 were slaves. In 1830 the 
twelve free States had 7,006,000 population ; 
the twelve slave States had 5,848,000, of 
whom 2,153,000 were slaves. In 1820 the 
free States had 24 members of the Senate 
and 105 members of the House; the slave 
States had 24 members of the Senate and 
82 members of the House. In 1832 the 
free States had still 24 members of the 
Senate and 141 members of the House; 
the slave States had 24 members of the Sen- 
ate and 99 members of the House. Thus, 
156 



The Slavery Question 

while the free States had a majority of the 
House, the free and slave States were evenly 
balanced infthe Senate, a condition which 
continued from 1820 to 1850. "While the 
power of the free and slave States was 
thus evenly balanced in the Senate, the sup- 
porters of slavery recognized the fact that 
the expansive power of the free territory was 
much greater than that of the slave territory 
in the matter of State-making. By the Or- 
dinance of 1787 it had been decreed that 
slavery should never exist in the Territory 
Northwest of the Ohio, and by the Missouri 
Compromise it had been agreed that there 
should be no slavery in the Louisiana Pur- 
chase north of 31° 30' except in the State of 
Missouri. The great free area north and 
west of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri 
was capable of furnishing material for a dozen 
States, while the only available territory for 
State-making in the area where slavery might 
be maintained was the territories of Florida 
and Arkansas. Having by the admission of 
Missouri obtained an even division of power 
in the Senate, in which the free States had 
formerly always had a majority, the slave 
157 



Expansion of Our Territory 

States discouraged further State-making, while 
the free States, remembering the bitterness of 
the Missouri struggle, were not anxious to 
precipitate further strife so long as it could 
be delayed. 

The only important changes in territorial 
lines or government in the period from 1821 
to 1834 were the establishment of Florida as 
a Territory in 1822 and a reduction in the 
area of Arkansas Territory in 1824 and 1828, 
the area now Oklahoma and Indian Terri- 
tory being detached from Arkansas and 
restored as a part of the Louisiana Purchase, 
from which it had been taken. 

In 1834, however, the growth of popula- 
tion in the Northwest was so great that it 
became apparent that there must be some 
better form of government. There were a 
quarter of a million people in the area north 
of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. In 
that year, therefore, the area between the 
northern boundary of Missouri and Canada, 
and extending as far west as the Missouri 
Eiver, was attached to the Territory of Michi- 
gan, for purposes of government. Michigan 
Territory, after this was accomplished, in- 
158 



The Slavery Question 

eluded all of the present States of Michigan, 
Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and parts of 
North and South Dakota, an area of 325,000 
square miles, or as much as the area at present 
occupied by the original thirteen States. 



THE OHIO AND MICHIGAN BOUNDARY DISPUTE 

The people of Michigan had been for 
several years clamoring for the admission of 
their original area as a State and had made ap- 
plication to Congress for authority to frame a 
Constitution, and took the necessary steps for 
admission. A disagreement between Michi- 
gan and Ohio regarding the boundary line 
delayed action by Congress. The Michigan 
authorities claimed that their southern line 
should run due east from the most southerly 
part of Lake Michigan and would therefore 
touch Lake Erie at a point south of Toledo, 
thus giving that place and its important 
harbor to the State of Michigan. To this 
the people and authorities of Ohio objected 
strenuously. The line claimed by Michigan 
had been adopted when Michigan Territory 
was first formed, but the present line, 67 
159 



Expansion of Our Territory 

miles farther nortli, had been adopted when 
Ohio and Indiana were made States. The 
area had remained under control of Michigan 
until 1836, when the Legislature of Ohio 
passed an act organizing the disj3uted terri- 
tory into townships. Each State appealed 
to the President, who, however, took no 
action. The Governor of Ohio called out 
the State militia and the Governor of Michi- 
gan took possession of Toledo. Congress 
proposed to admit Michigan without the 
disputed territory, but to give it in exchange 
for that area the section now known as the 
northern peninsula of Michigan. The propo- 
sition was at first rejected by the people of 
Michigan, but finally acceded to and prepara- 
tions made for admission. The area thus 
given at the northwest has become very 
valuable by reason of the great copper and 
iron mines since developed in that section. 



ARKANSAS AND MICHIGAN ADMITTED AS STATES 

Meantime the supporters of slavery took 
steps to maintain the balance of power which 
had existed in the Senate, and Arkansas was 
160 



The Slavery Question 

proposed for statehood and application made. 
Arkansas was admitted in June, 1836, and 
Michigan in January, 1837. The slave States 
had thereafter 26 members of the Senate and 
the free States also 26 members. 

Michigan, as has already been stated, in 
the year before its admission as a State in- 
cluded within its boundaries all of the area 
now known as Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, 
and parts of North and South Dakota. When 
Michigan was admitted as a State the re- 
maining area was established as the Territory 
of Wisconsin and so continued during a period 
of about two years, when the section lying 
between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, 
from the State of Missouri north to Canada 
was in 1838 established as the Territory of 
Iowa. The Territory of Wisconsin then in- 
cluded all the present State of Wisconsin 
and that part of Minnesota east of the Mis- 
sissippi River; and the Territory of Iowa 
included the present State of Iowa, that part 
of Minnesota west of the Mississippi, and 
that part of North and South Dakota east of 
the Missouri River. 



161 



Expansion of Our Territory 



' FLORIDA AND IOWA ADMITTED AS STATES 

Anotlier long period of delay in the 
admission of new States followed the simul- 
taneous admission of Michigan and Arkansas. 
The people of Florida desired admission, but 
many of them desired that the territory 
should be divided into two States, East and 
West Florida, respectively ; the latter to con- 
tain at least a part of the area which had been 
included in the province of West Florida, and 
this suggestion was quite agreeable to those 
who desired to see as many slave States as 
possible. The division proposition was, how- 
ever, finally abandoned and application made 
for statehood. Meantime Iowa had also asked 
admission in 1844, though without success; 
but finally the propositions for the admission 
of Florida and Iowa were coupled in one bill, 
which became a law March 3, 1845. Florida 
had already framed a Constitution and was 
admitted at once, but the people of Iowa 
were dissatisfied with the boundary lines 
named in the enabling act and did not comply 
with its provisions. The boundaries originally 
named fixed the northern limit farther north 
162 




^Vi 




163 



Expansion of Our Territory 

than at present, but made the western bound- 
ary a due north and south line a considerable 
distance east of the Missouri River. This 
was unsatisfactory to the people of Iowa, and 
in 1846 a new act was passed fixing the 
western boundary on the Missouri River, and 
Iowa became a State. The area north of the 
State of Iowa was subsequently established 
as the Territory of Minnesota. The area 
which formed the State of Iowa had been 
successively a part of the Territory of 
Louisiana, the Territory of Missouri, the 
Territory of Michigan, the Territory of "Wis- 
consin, and the Territory of Iowa. 



164 



NINTH PEKIOD 



Meantime, during the period intervening 
between the admission of Arkansas and Michi- 
gan in 1836-37 and the admission of Florida 
and Iowa in 1845-46, developments of great 
importance were in progress looking to the 
addition of new territory to the United 
States, an area which would give opportu- 
nity for the further expansion of slavery. 
The people of Mexico had revolted against 
Spanish rule in 1810, and after a long 
series of struggles were in 1822 successful, 
and in 1824 a republican government was 
established under the title of the United 
States of Mexico, with a system of govern- 
ment based upon that of the United States. 
Among the provinces or states included in 
this Union was the area claimed by Mexico 
north of the Eio Grande, which at the time 
165 



Expansion of Our Territory 

of tlie formation of the republic consisted of 
tlie provinces or states of Upper California, 
New Mexico, and "Texas and Coahuila," 
which latter were admitted to the Mexican 
Union as one state. The United States, it 
will be remembered, had originally claimed 
the Texas Territory as a part of the Louisi- 
ana Purchase, but had finally abandoned it in 
the treaty by which Florida was purchased 
and the boundaries between the United 
States and Spanish territory fixed. 

TEXAS ADDED TO THE UNION 

But there still remained a desire, espe- 
cially in the Southwest, to see Texas become 
a part of the United States, and an offer of 
$1,000,000 was in 1827 made to the Mexican 
Government for Texas, and another of $5,- 
000,000 in 1829, but were successively re- 
jected. Large numbers of people from the 
Southwest of the United States settled in 
Texas shortly after the establishment of the 
Republic of Mexico, by their presence and in- 
fluence creating a sentiment in favor of an- 
nexation to the United States. In 1833 the 
Texans attempted to obtain a separate State 
166 



Texas 

government, but without success ; but when 
the Mexican Congress abolished all State Con- 
stitutions, and in 1835 created a dictator, 
Texas in 1836 seceded from the Mexican 
Union and established itself as an independ- 
ent republic. In the election for President 
of the Kepublic which followed, an almost 
unanimous vote was cast for annexation to the 
United States. The application was made by 
the Minister of Texas at Washington in 1837, 
but failed to receive favorable action in Con- 
gress. In 1843-44, however, the pressure for 
the admission of Texas became very great, 
especially in the South, where land warrants 
for immense tracts of land in Texas had been 
sold at low prices, and where the desire for 
additional slave area rendered the proposition 
an extremely popular one. A new treaty of 
annexation was made in 1844, but again re- 
jected in the Senate. 

The question became one of party politics 
in the United States, and entered largely 
into the presidential election of 1844, when 
President Polk was elected upon a pledge 
in favor of the annexation of Texas. But 
before he was inaugurated Congress had, 
13 167 



Expansion of Our Territory 

in January, 1845, passed an act giving its 
"consent tliat the territory properly in- 
cluded within the Kepublic of Texas may 
be erected into a new State to be called 
the State of Texas," in case evidence of the 
formation of the new State should be sent to 
Congress during that year. President Tyler 
hurried a messenger off to Texas the day pre- 
ceding the inauguration of Polk, and the mes- 
senger returned in due time with the consent 
of the Texan Congress, ratified by popular 
vote ; and in December, 1845, a joint resolu- 
tion admitting Texas as a State passed the 
House and Senate. 

Thus Texas passed from the position of 
an independent republic to a State of the 
Union without a treaty and without serving 
the usual probationary period as a Territory, 
and actually became a State before Iowa, for 
which the enabling act had become a law 
March 3d of that year. The act admitting 
Texas also gave to the supporters of slavery 
an opportunity to further continue their bal- 
ance of power in the Senate, by providing 
that "new States of convenient size not ex- 
ceeding four in number in addition to the 
168 



Expansion of Our Territory 

said State of Texas may hereafter by tlie con- 
sent of said State be formed out of tlie terri- 
tory thereof, and shall be admitted to the 
Union with or without slavery, as the people 
of each State may desire." The area of Tex- 
as as admitted was 389,795 square miles, or 
nearly one-half as large as the Louisiana 
Purchase. Subsequently (1850) the United 
States purchased 123,784 square miles of the 
northwest part of the territory claimed by 
Texas, paying $10,000,000 for it. The area 
so purchased now forms the eastern half of 
the Territory of New Mexico, and parts of 
Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and Wyoming. 

WISCONSIN ADMITTED AS A STATE 

"With the addition at the South of Texas 
as a State and the possibility that the area 
might soon become several slave States, the 
North made haste to demand an increase in 
the number of States in that section, and in 
1848 Wisconsin was admitted as a State with 
about its present boundaries, and in 1849 
Minnesota Territory was established from the 
area north of the State of Iowa, which had 
been formerly included in Iowa Territory, 
170 



^^ 



Texas 

and also including the area north and west 
of Lake Superior which had been originally 
a part of the Northwest Territory, and for- 
merly included in the Territory of Wiscon- 
sin. This inclusion in Minnesota of the area 
north and west of Lake Superior was not 
in exact compliance with the act creating the 
Territory Northwest of the Ohio, which pro- 
vided that that area should be formed into 
not more than five States. As Ohio, Indiana, 
Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin had been 
severally formed from that area, the inclu- 
sion of remaining Territory as a part of a 
sixth State does not seem to have literally 
complied with the original act. The area in 
question was a part of the area of Wisconsin, 
and statements have been made by generally 
accepted authorities that it was included in 
the State of Wisconsin, as at first formed 
and afterward taken away and added to 
Minnesota, but this later statement does not 
seem to be justified by an examination of the 
acts by which the boundaries of the State of 
Wisconsin were originally fixed. 



171 



Expansion of Our Territory 

THE OREGON TERRITORY 

The next great step was the favorable set- 
tlement of the claim of the United States to 
the Oregon country and its admission as a 
Territory of the United States. The Spanish 
and British had both claimed it by right of 
discovery and explorations prior to the War 
of the Eevolution; and in 1792 a Boston trader, 
Captain Kobert Gray, entered the mouth of 
the Columbia River and laid the foundation 
of the claim of the United States. After the 
purchase of Louisiana from France, it was at 
first supposed that the Oregon area was in- 
cluded in that purchase. In 1811 John Jacob 
Astor and others established a fur-trading post 
at the mouth of the Columbia, calling it As- 
toria. The British, however, insisted that the 
territory belonged to them and captured As- 
toria, and in 1818 a treaty of joint occupation 
between Great Britain and the United States 
was made. As has already been stated, the 
treaty between the United States and Spain, 
for the purchase of Florida, defined the bound- 
aries of the Spanish possessions in America, 
and fixed the northern boundary of her claims 
172 




173 



Expansion of Our Territory 

at tlie 42d degree of latitude, tlius disposing 
of Spain's claim to this Oregon Territory and 
to this extent strengthening those of the 
United States. The joint occupancy of the 
United States and Great Britain, which had 
been agreed upon in 1818, continued until 
1846. By that time the demand of the peo- 
ple of the United States became so urgent 
that war with Great Britain for its possession 
seemed imminent, and when in that year a 
proposition was made by the British Govern- 
ment, fixing the boundaiy at the 49th parallel 
and the Straits of Fuca, it was accepted by 
the United States, the treaty ratified, and 
Great Britain withdrew, leaving the United 
States in full possession. An organic act 
had meantime been framed and accepted by 
the American settlers in the Oregon coun- 
try, who then numbered several thousands, 
and in 1848 the Territory of Oregon was 
formed by the act of Congress. The area 
thus added to the Union includes the present 
States of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and 
parts of Montana and Wyoming. 



174 



The Mexican War 



THE MEXICAN CESSION 

The next great step was the cession to the 
United States by Mexico of the area west of 
Texas and south of Oregon. A dispute 
arose between the United States and Mexico 
regarding the southern boundary line of 
Texas shortly after the annexation of Texas. 
The Mexican Government held that the 
southern boundary of Texas was the Nueces 
Kiver, and the United States claimed that 
the Eio Grande was the proper boundary 
line, and proceeded to take possession of the 
area in question. This resulted in war be- 
tween the United States and Mexico, in which 
the United States was successful in every 
engagement. During that war the United 
States took possession of the Mexican States 
of New Mexico and Upper California, ex- 
tending westward from Texas to the Pacific, 
and when the war ended with the complete 
success of the United States forces, an agree- 
ment was made by which the United States 
retained possession of all this territory, upon 
payment of $15,000,000 to Mexico, and 
$3,250,000 of claims of American citizens 
against Mexico. By this was added the ter- 
175 



The Mexican War 

ritory now included in California, Nevada, 
Utah, most of Arizona and parts of New 
Mexico and Colorado, and the hopes of the 
South for additional slave territory were 
thus renewed. The territory east of the Rio 
Grande, which was claimed as being included 
in the Mexican cession, was also claimed by 
Texas as part of her original territory, and 
this claim was settled in 1850 by payment of 
$10,000,000 by the United States to the State 
of Texas for the area in question, which 
amounted to 123,784 square miles and now 
forms parts of New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kan- 
sas, Colorado, and Wyoming. 

By the steps which have been above de- 
scribed — the Texas annexation in 1845, the 
Oregon settlement in 1846, and the Mexican 
cession in 1848 — the United States had in less 
than three years become possessed of the en- 
tire territory west of the Louisiana Purchase 
and extending to the Pacific Ocean, and had 
thus increased its area more than fifty per 
cent. At that time no part of the Louisiana 
Purchase west of Louisiana, Arkansas, Mis- 
souri, Iowa, and Minnesota, had even been 
divided into Territories, 
177 



Expansion of Our Territory 

The necessity for establisliing government 
in this great western area soon became ap- 
parent. Thousands were flocking to Oregon 
and tens of thousands to California, where 
gold had been discovered ; the Mormons had 
established themselves in Utah ; there was 
a considerable Mexican population in New 
Mexico and California, and the country west 
of the Missouri required a government to pror 
tect those who were endeavoring to reach the 
Pacific by an overland route, as well as the 
pioneers who were beginning to make their 
homes in that section. 



178 



TENTH PEKIOD 

KANSAS, NEBKASKA, AND MISSOURI 

The years from 1848 to 1854 were there- 
fore full of activity in the establishment of 
new political divisions west of the Missouri 
River. A convention was held in California 
in 1849 and a State Constitution framed, and 
in 1850 Congress admitted it as a State, with- 
out preliminary apprenticeship as a Territory. 
In the same year all of the remainder of the 
area obtained from Mexico, including the dis- 
puted area for which a quitclaim had been 
purchased from Texas, was formed into two 
great Territories, Utah and New Mexico. 

The " Gadsden Purchase " was the next 
addition made to the territory of the United 
States. A disagreement having arisen with 
Mexico regarding the boundary line south of 
New Mexico, the matter was settled in 1853 
by the payment of $10,000,000 and the addi- 
179 







Or ^ <0! 

(« :& - 







Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri 

tion to New Mexico of the area since known 
as the Gadsden Purchase. The area thus 
added was 36,211 square miles in extent, or 
about equal to the State of Indiana. It re- 
ceived the name " Gadsden Purchase " be- 
cause the purchase was negotiated by General 
James Gadsden, then United States Minister 
to Mexico. 

In 1 854 that part of the Louisiana Purchase 
west of Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota was 
divided into the Territories of Nebraska and 
Kansas. A small section of the area pur- 
chased from Texas was also included in the 
Territory of Kansas, and Nebraska Territory 
included what is now North and South Da- 
kota and parts of Montana, Wyoming, and 
Colorado. 

MINNESOTA AND OREGON ADMITTED AS STATES 

The transformation of these great terri- 
tories into smaller divisions soon began. In 
1858 Minnesota Territory was reduced to 
about its present boundaries, and made a 
State ; in 1859 Oregon was reduced in size 
and made a State, and the eastern part of the 
territory added temporarily to Washington 
181 



Expansion of Our Territory 

Territory. In 1861 the western part of Utah 
was established as the Territory of Nevada ; 
the eastern part of Utah, the western part of 
Kansas, and the southwest corner of Ne- 
braska were established as the Territory of 
Colorado ; the remainder of Kansas Territory 
was admitted as the State of Kansas, and the 
northern part of Nebraska cut off and es- 
tablished as the Territory of Dakota, includ- 
ing with it that part of the former territory 
of Minnesota which had not been included in 
the State of Minnesota. 

THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY IN THE NEW 
TERRITORIES 

Meantime the question of the relation of 
slavery to the new territory was a subject of 
much bitter discussion. It was conceded that 
Texas was to be a slave State, and the act 
establishing the Territory of Oregon excluded 
slavery from that section ; but the question of 
whether it should or should not be permitted 
in the great area ceded by Mexico was a 
burning issue. The Missouri Compromise, 
which excluded slavery from the territory 
of the United States north of 36° 30' except 
182 



Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri 

in the State of Missouri, could not be held to 
apply to the area ceded by Mexico, because 
it was not a part of the United States when 
that law was enacted. The laws of Mexico 
prohibited slavery and of course had ex- 
tended over the area in question before its 
cession to the United States, but did not 
apply after that cession. California, which 
had been rapidly populated by people from 
the East and especially the North after the 
gold discoveries of 1848, in 1849 adopted a 
Constitution prohibiting slavery, and applied 
for admission as a State. This precipitated 
the discussion as to whether the area ceded 
by Mexico should become free or slave terri- 
tory. 

After much discussion another "com- 
promise " was proposed by Mr. Clay, and in 
1850 adopted. It provided that California 
might be admitted with the prohibition of 
slavery, but that the remainder of the 
Mexican cession should be divided into two 
territories. New Mexico and Utah, without 
any express restriction upon slavery, the 
purpose being to at least defer action on this 
question and probably leave it to the people 



Expansion of Our Territory 

of the Territories in framing their constitu- 
tions for admission as States. This proposi- 
tion was adopted and the Mexican cession, 
except California, became debatable ground 
for the introduction of slavery. 

In 1854 the confusion over the slavery- 
question was intensified by the presenta- 
tion by Mr. Douglass, of Illinois, of a bill 
organizing that part of the Louisiana Pur- 
chase between the 37° and the Canadian 
line into the Territories of Kansas and 
Nebraska, and providing that all laws of 
the United States should be extended to 
these Territories "except the eighth section 
of the act preparatory to the admission of 
Missouri in 1820 (the compromise section), 
which being inconsistent with the principles 
of non-intervention by Congress with slavery 
in the States and Territories is hereby declared 
inoperative and void." 

It further declared it the purpose of the 
act not to legislate slavery into or out of any 
Territory, but to "leave the people thereof 
perfectly free to form and regulate their 
domestic institutions in their own way." It 
also extended into the Territories the fugitive 
184 



Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri 

slave law which permitted the recovery in 
any State or Territory of slaves escaping from 
other States, requiring officers and citizens to 
assist in their recapture and return, and pro- 
hibited the acceptance of the testimony of 
the person claimed as a slave. This proposi- 
tion, known as " The Kansas-Nebraska Bill," 
became a law. It virtually annulled the 
Missouri Compromise, by which slavery was 
prohibited north of 36° 30', and left to the 
people of the great area included in the Terri- 
tories of Kansas and Nebraska the right of 
framing Constitutions with or without slavery 
and applying to Congress for admission under 
them, and by implication at least extended a 
like privilege to any other area which had not 
been erected into a State. 

This act was followed by a bitter struggle 
for the control of Kansas. People from the 
South and from the North flocked in for 
the purpose of controlling the Territory and 
adopting a Constitution with slavery or with- 
out slavery, and the contest resulted in col- 
lisions between the two parties, the establish- 
ment of two Territorial governments, blood- 
shed, actual warfare and the interference of 
185 



Expansion of Our Territory 

United States troops. A State Constitution 
prohibiting slavery was finally adopted in 
1858 and admission asked of Congress. The 
bill for the admission passed the House, but 
was rejected by the Senate. 

In 1857 another event increased the privi- 
leges of slavery in the Territories and inten- 
sified public feeling. An army oflScer who 
owned a slave, Dred Scott by name, had 
taken him from Missouri into Illinois and 
thence into Minnesota as his property, and 
after remaining there for some time returned 
with him to Missouri. Scott, on returning to 
Missouri, endeavored to secure his liberty, 
claiming that his residence in a free State 
had destroyed his master's rights over him. 
The question was carried to the Supreme 
Court of the United States, which decided 
that Scott was not a citizen and could there- 
fore have no standing in the courts. It also 
held that slaves were mere property and 
that Congress had no right to exclude this 
kind of property from the Territories, but 
must grant to every citizen the right to 
carry this as well as any other property 
into the Territories of the United States 
186 



Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri 

and protect liim and his property against 
hostile legislation in those Territories so 
long as they remained such, or until they 
became States. 

This series of events, and especially the 
last mentioned, extended the right to hold 
slaves to all the great western area which 
had not already become States, and intensi- 
fied the hostilities between the opponents and 
supporters of slavery. 

But these rights to carry slaves into the 
Territories and hold slaves there while they 
remained Territories did not fasten slavery 
upon any given area indefinitely, because the 
matter had to be determined by congressional 
action when the area should be admitted as a 
State of the Union. The slave States had lost 
the balance of power in the Senate when 
California was admitted, and in 1852 they 
had but 30 Senators and the free States 32 ; 
while in the House they had 90 members and 
the free States 144. In 1858 the State of 
Minnesota was organized from the eastern 
part of the Territory of Minnesota and 
admitted, and in 1859 the State of Oresron 
was formed from the western portion of 
18? 



Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri 

Oregon Territory, aud these two events in- 
creased the number of fi'ee State Senators to 
36 against 30 from the slave States. Kansas 
was also knocking loudly for admission as a 
free State, and it was apparent that this could 
not be long delayed. 



189 



ELEVENTH PEKIOD 

THE CIVIL WAK 

The events above described and the radi- 
cally different views between tbe two sections 
on the question of slavery had led to a gradual 
development and open advocacy in the South 
of a sentiment which had been from time to 
time expressed during nearly all of the history 
of the Union, viz.: that the Union was a 
"compact" and that those forming it sur- 
rendered only a portion of their individual 
rights, and that when the Federal Government 
passed the limits of its delegated authority it 
was within the power of the States to inter- 
pose, and maintain certain rights which they 
had reserved to themselves; that the States 
were one party to the compact and the 
Federal Government the other, and that each 
party must be the judge of infractions of the 
ao:reement and the mode of redress. 

This sentiment had been expressed by 
190 



The Civil War 

resolutions of the Kentucky Legislature as 
early as 1798 and by that of Virginia in 
1799. In 1814 a convention of delegates 
from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connec- 
ticut, and parts of Vermont and New Hamp- 
shire had held a secret convention at Hart- 
ford which expressed somewhat similar sen- 
timents, and was believed to have for its 
purpose the dissolution of the Union, though 
this was strenuously denied. In 1832 South 
Carolina had gone to the extent of declaring 
by a State convention the tariff acts of Con- 
gress null and void in that State and pro- 
posing secession if the Government attempted 
to enforce the objectionable tariif law in that 
State, and the Legislature a few months later 
passed acts reassuming powers which had been 
abandoned under the Constitution. Further 
developments were, however, averted by the 
prompt action of President Jackson in support 
of the tariif law and by subsequent modifica- 
tion of that law by Congress. 

The above events relative to the slavery 

question and the doctrine of the rights of a 

State or States to terminate the "compact" 

or dissolve the Union have been stated some- 

191 



Expansion of Our Territory 

what in detail because of their bearing upon 
the great events of 1861-65, by which an 
attempt was made to divide the territory of 
the United States, w^hose growth from an area 
of 827,000 square miles and thirteen political 
divisions to over 8,000,000 square miles and 
nearly forty political divisions has been here 
traced. 

THE WAR FOR THE DISSOLUTION OP THE UNION 

In 1861 came the war of secession, the 
effort to divide the Union and to establish a 
new government — The Confederate States of 
America — from the territory in which slavery 
existed. All of the slave-holding States, ex- 
cept those on the northern border of the slave 
area — Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and 
Missouri — joined in the terrible struggle, 
adopted ordinances of secession, raised armies 
and entered upon the war which continued 
from 1861 to 1865. The States which joined 
in the movement for secession and declared 
themselves separated from the Union were 
Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South 
Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mis- 
sissippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas. 
192 



Expansion of Our Territory 

The struggle to determine whether the 
nation should be divided continued for four 
long years, with a loss on both sides of more 
than 600,000 lives and a cost, counting 
that of both sides, of about $5,000,000,000. 
The plan of the Union forces was to split 
open the Confederacy by taking possession 
of the Mississippi Valley, and this was 
finally accomplished after two years of per- 
sistent struggle, partly by forces making 
their way down the river from the north, and 
partly by others who had forced their way 
past the Confederate batteries at the mouth 
of that river and worked their way north- 
ward. With Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas 
cut off at the west, another wedge of troops 
was driven through the center toward the 
southeast, at Chattanooga (Tenn.), Atlanta 
(Ga.), thence to Savannah, and then turning 
north again through South and North Caro- 
lina. While this was in progress stubborn 
fighting was going on between the two capi- 
tals located comparatively near to each other 
— Kichmond and Washington — battles which 
for persistence and bravery on both sides 
were not surpassed by anything that the 
194 



The Civil War 

world had ever seen ; and it was not until 
April 9, 1865, that the leader of the Confed- 
erate forces surrendered and the war closed. 

SLAVERY TERMINATED 

Meantime, slavery, which had been the 
cause of so much sectional strife for many 
years, ceased to exist in the sections in rebel- 
lion, through a proclamation issued by Presi- 
dent Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief of the 
Army and Navy, in which he declared the act 
a military necessity ; and in 1865 it was rati- 
fied by the adoption of the Thirteenth Amend- 
ment to the Constitution, prohibiting slavery 
within the United States, in nearly the same 
words used in 1787 in prohibiting it in the 
Territory Northwest of the Ohio. 

[Slavery had originated in the colonies 
only twelve years after the settlement at 
Jamestown through the purchase in the Vir- 
ginia colony of a cargo of negroes from 
Africa brought by a Dutch vessel. At that 
time slavery was not uncommon in many 
parts of the world. It extended over all the 
colonies, but was not especially popular in 
the North, because the negroes from Africa 
195 



Expansion of Our Territory 

could not thrive in that rigorous climate and 
their labor was not so much required in that 
section of limited agricultural areas ; while in 
the South, with its milder climate and chief 
dependence on agriculture, it became popular. 
Massachusetts abolished slavery in 1780, 
while acts of gradual emancipation were 
passed by Pennsylvania in 1780; New 
Hampshire, 1783; Khode Island, 1784; Con- 
necticut, 1784; New York, 1799; and New 
Jersey, 1804. New York afterward passed 
an absolute emancipation act to take effect in 
1827.] 

ACTIVITIES DURING THE WAR PERIOD 

The war period, 1861-65, was one of 
great activity at the North. It was necessary 
to develop the producing area to furnish sup- 
plies for the enormous army, and railway 
construction was also rapidly opening new 
areas in the West. The discovery of gold in 
the Pikes Peak Kocky Mountain region was 
drawing large numbers of people across the 
plains which had formerly had little popula- 
tion and required little in the way of govern- 
ment. The project of a railway to the Pa- 
196 



Expansion of Our Territory 

cific, which had been discussed for a decade, 
took definite form in the passage by Congress 
in 1862 of an act granting five sections of 
land and $16,000 in bonds per mile for a 
transcontinental road from the Missouri River 
to the Pacific, and in some difficult sections 
the amount of bonds per mile was much 
higher. 

MANY NEW TERRITORIES FORMED 

These conditions suggested that a more 
satisfactory form of government should be 
furnished for the territory through which 
these roads were to be built, and into which 
many thousands were hastening, attracted by 
the gold discoveries. Accordingly, in 1861, 
as outlined elsewhere, the great Territory of 
Utah, which included about one-third of the 
Mexican cession, was divided into three sec- 
tions, the western part called the Territory of 
Nevada, and the central part retaining the 
name of the Territory of Utah. To the east- 
ern section was added about an equal amount 
of territory from the western area of the 
Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and the 
political division so formed was called the 
198 



The Civil War 

Territory of Colorado. That Territory thus 
included as its western area land which had 
been acquired as a part of the Mexican ces- 
sion, in the center a part of the land pur- 
chased by the United States from Texas in 
1850, and in the east a part of the Louisiana 
Purchase. 

The great Territory of Nebraska, which 
had stretched from Kansas at the south to 
Canada at the north, and from the Missouri 
River on the east to the Rocky Mountains on 
the west, was also divided in 1861, all of the 
area north of its present boundary being 
erected as the Territory of Dakota, with which 
was included that western part of the former 
Territory of Minnesota which had not been 
included in the State of Minnesota when it 
was formed in 1858. Nebraska remained a 
Territory and retained its western area, 
which subsequently became a part of Wyo- 
ming. 

HOW WEST VIRGINIA WAS CREATED A STATE 

One step in State-making which occurred 
in the early part of the war period was unique 
in character. It was the admission of the 
14 199 



Expansion of Our Territory 

western counties of Virginia as a separate 
State. The people of that part of the State 
were Unionists and had refused to agree to 
the ordinance of secession which Virginia 
had adopted. They desired to form a new 
State and remain in the Union, but the Con- 
stitution provides that " no new State shall 
be formed or erected within the jurisdiction 
of any other State without the consent of the 
Legislature of the State and of Congress." 
In order to meet this requirement a conven- 
tion was held at Wheeling, Va., the Virginia 
Ordinance of Secession declared void, the 
State offices declared vacant, and a Legislature 
elected. An election for Governor was held, 
and Senators chosen and sent to Washington, 
and they were admitted to the Senate as rep- 
resenting the State of Virginia, whose Senators 
had previously withdrawn from the Senate. 
An ordinance was passed by the new Legisla- 
ture for the establishment of the State of 
'' Kanawha," and it was approved by popular 
vote. A new convention, however, which 
framed the Constitution of the proposed State, 
submitted the name of " West Virginia," and 
the Constitution with this name was ratified 
200 



Expansion of Our Territory 

by popular vote. The Legislature, chosen 
in fact from the forty counties of Virginia 
which had refused to secede, but assuming to 
represent the whole State, gave its consent to 
the erection of the forty counties into the 
State of West Virginia, and Congress ad- 
mitted the new State December 31, 1862. 
In 1866 the Legislature of Virginia trans- 
ferred two additional counties to West Vir- 
ginia. 

DIVIDING THE EXTREME NORTHWEST 

The Territory of Washington, which had 
been formed from the northern and eastern 
parts of Oregon, had by this time become 
sufficiently populated to require a division, 
and the great Territory of Dakota also re- 
quired a division. In 1863 the eastern part 
of Washington and the western part of Da- 
kota with the western section of Nebraska 
were formed into the Territory of Idaho. In 
the same year the great Territory of New 
Mexico was divided and the western part es- 
tablished as the Territory of Arizona. This 
Territory included in its southern section 
most of the " Gadsden Purchase." The re- 
202 



The Civil War 

mainder of the Territory of New Mexico re- 
tained its former name, and both Arizona and 
New Mexico remained Territories more than 
half a century after the organization of the 
Territory of New Mexico, and more than 
forty years after its division into these two 
Territories. 

STATE OF NEVADA 

Nevada was the next State admitted after 
West Virginia. Indeed only two States were 
admitted during the war period, although 
many new Territories were formed, chiefly 
because of the rapid development due to gold 
and silver discoveries, railroad building, and 
the westward movement of population. Ne- 
vada was admitted as a State in 1864. The 
act creating the Territory of Nevada, passed 
in 1861, had included a part of California in 
its limits, but the consent of that State was 
refused, and, as a consequence, the eastern 
line of Nevada was extended eastward to the 
115th meridian by the act which admitted it 
as a State ; and two years later the eastern 
boundary was again removed eastward to the 
114th meridian, where it has since remained. 
203 



TWELFTH PERIOD 

ALASKA, EECONSTEUCTION, AKD LATER STATES 

In 1867 came anotlier addition to the area 
of the United States, the purchase of Alaska. 
It had been claimed by Russia by right of 
discovery in 1741, by exploration, and by a 
settlement begun in 1784, the year after the 
peace treaty between Great Britain and the 
successful colonies. A Russian company was 
given charge of the fur business which rap. 
idly grew up there, a naval station was estab- 
lished, a shipyard constructed, foundries and 
machine shops put into operation, and experi- 
ments made in the manufacture of bricks, 
woodenware, and implements for use in agri- 
culture and mining. Commercial operations 
were opened later with the Mexicans in Cali- 
fornia and along the Mexican coast, and upon 
the discovery of gold in California, in 1848, 
large stocks of goods from the warehouses at 
204 



Reconstruction 

Sitka were sold to the people of San Fran- 
cisco and an active trade established. By 
this time the people of California and Ore- 
gon became acquainted with the fisheries 
and mineral products of Alaska and began 
to urge its purchase. The Kussian Govern- 
ment was not averse to disposing of the 
Territory, so distant from its seat of govern- 
ment, and in 1867 it was purchased by Sec- 
retary of State Seward, for $7,200,000. 

The government of Alaska is adminis- 
tered by a governor and other officers ap- 
pointed by the President. Its fur seals were 
for many years of great value, and the salmon 
fisheries are now the most valuable of the 
world, and its mines yield several million 
dollars' worth of gold annually. It has no 
legislature and no delegate in Congress. 

THE SECEDING STATES READMITTED 

The question as to how the Southern 
States should be restored to their standing in 
the Union at the close of the war was a new 
and difficult one. The Constitution made no 
provision for such condition, and there were 
no precedents. President Lincoln issued an 
205 



Expansion of Our Territory 

amnesty proclamation in 1863 offering full 
pardon and restoration of all property rights, 
except slaves, to all (except certain leaders in 
the rebellion) wlio would take the oath to 
support, protect, and defend the Constitution 
of the United States, and support all acts of 
Congress and proclamations of the President 
with reference to slaves, unless repealed, 
modified, or held void by Congress or the 
Supreme Court, and that in every State in 
which one-tenth of the voters of 1860 should 
take such oath, a republican form of govern- 
ment would be recognized by the President, 
the question of representation in Congress to 
be determined by that body. This ]3lan was 
favored by some at the close of the war. 
Another plan proposed was for the appoint- 
ment of provisional governors and the enrol- 
ment of those willing to take the oath of 
allegiance, the adoption and approval of a 
constitution, and admission of the State in 
the same manner followed in regard to Terri- 
tories. 

Congress finally adopted a measure pro- 
viding that no State should be represented in 
either House unless Congress had declared it 
206 



Reconstruction 

entitled to representation. An amendment 
to the Constitution (the Fourteenth) was 
then proposed, and an act was passed de- 
claring that any State ratifying this amend- 
ment should be entitled to representation. 
This proposed amendment to the Constitu- 
tion made all persons born or naturalized 
in the United States, citizens thereof, ir- 
respective of color, prohibited the State 
from making laws to abridge the privileges 
or immunities of any citizen, and provided 
that Representatives in Congress should be 
apportioned to the States according to their 
respective population, counting the whole 
number of persons in each State, excepting 
Indians not taxed. [Formerly Representa- 
tives were apportioned by adding to the 
whole number of free persons three-fifths of 
all others, except Indians not taxed.] It also 
provided that if suffrage should be denied to 
any male inhabitants twenty-one years of age, 
the basis of representation should be propor- 
tionately reduced. It also provided that the 
validity of the public debt authorized by law 
and for payment of bounties and pensions 
should not be questioned, but that neither 
207 



Expansion of Our Territory 

the United States nor the States should pay- 
any debt incurred in aid of the rebellion or 
any claim for loss by emancipation, and de- 
clared all such debts and claims void. 

Tennessee accepted this proposition in 
1866, but as the others delayed, Congress 
divided the remainder of the States into 
military districts, and military governors 
were appointed. They were to protect life 
and property, and provide for and supervise 
the election of delegates to constitutional con- 
ventions. These conventions were to frame 
constitutions and submit them to a popular 
vote, and if ratified they should be forwarded 
to Congress. Should they prove satisfactory, 
and the Fourteenth Amendment be ratified by 
the Legislatures of the States, they might be 
admitted after the amendment had been rati- 
fied by a sufficient number of States to make 
it a part of the Constitution. Under this, 
North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, 
Arkansas, Florida, and Louisiana were ad- 
mitted in 1868, and Georgia also took action, 
which was, however, not in form satisfactory to 
Congress, and her admission was not made 
complete until 1870. The other States — Vir- 
208 



Later States 

ginia, Mississippi, and Texas — delayed action, 
and meantime the Fifteenth Amendment to 
the Constitution was proposed and adopted, 
declaring specifically that the right of citizens 
to vote should not be denied or abridged by 
the United States or any State on account of 
race, color, or previous condition of servitude ; 
and Virginia, Mississippi, Texas, and Georgia 
were required to ratify this amendment before 
their final admission in 1870, when the Union 
was again complete. 

Thus, all of the eleven seceding States 
had returned, but when they reassembled 
in the halls of Congress they found that the 
territory which formed the eleven States in 
1860 formed twelve States in 1870, West 
Virginia having been constructed from a part 
of the territory formerly within the State of 
Virginia. Only three other States — Kansas, 
Nevada, and Nebraska — had been admitted 
during that period : Kansas in 1861, Nevada 
in 1864, and Nebraska in 1867. 

COLORADO, THE "CENTENNIAL STATE" 

Duiing the twenty years following the 
close of the civil war and the reconstruction 
209 



Expansion of Our Territory 

period, only one State was admitted. Col- 
orado applied for admission in 1875 and was 
admitted in 1876, the year in wMcli tlie 
hundredtli anniversary of the Declaration of 
Independence was celebrated, and Colorado 
thus became known as "• The Centennial 
State." It was admitted with substantially 
the same boundaries under which it existed 
as a Territory. 

WASHINGTON, IDAHO, WYOMING, AND THE 
DAKOTAS MADE STATES 

In 1889 came a period of activity in State- 
making. The Territory of Washington was 
in that year admitted as a State, and the 
Territory of Dakota was divided and ad- 
mitted as the States of North and South Da- 
kota. The great Territory of Idaho had been 
in 1864 subdivided, and the northeastern 
part established as the Territory of Montana, 
and in 1868 the southeastern part was es- 
tablished as the Territory of Wyoming ; 
Montana was admitted as a State in 1889 
and Idaho and Wyoming in 1890. 

Wyoming, when admitted, had the unique 
distinction of being composed of sections of 
210 








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m 




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52 






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W 










5* 


g 


c 


Sji 









u 




1^ 


(§ 








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= 2 






* 





211 



Expansion of Our Territory 

four different additions to the national terri- 
tory : the Louisiana Purchase, the Texas Pur- 
chase, the Mexican Cession, and the Oregon 
Country. Colorado, as already indicated, in- 
cluded parts of three additions : the Louisi- 
ana Purchase, the Texas Purchase, and the 
Mexican Cession ; but Wyoming included 
also a section from the original Oregon Ter- 
ritory. About two-thirds of the area at the 
east and northeast was from the Louisiana 
Purchase, the middle west from the Oregon 
Territory, the southwest from the Mexican 
Cession, and a small section in the central 
south from the area claimed by Texas and 
purchased from her by the United States in 
1850. 

UTAH AS A TERRITORY AND STATE 

Utah was admitted in 1894 as the forty- 
fifth State of the Union. It was originally 
a Mormon settlement, founded in 1847 by 
Mormons from Illinois and Missouri, when 
the section where they settled was Mexican 
territory. The Mormons sought this secluded 
spot in order that they might practise undis- 
turbed their religious beliefs, including that 
212 



Later States 

of polygamy, or plural wives. The cession 
of this area by Mexico in 1848 brought them 
again within the jurisdiction of the United 
States. They, however, organized an inde- 
pendent government, calling it "The State 
of Deseret," and in 1850 attempted to obtain 
admission as a State of the Union. In that 
year the great Territory of Utah was formed, 
and Brigham Young, the head of the Mormon 
Church, was appointed as governor ; but the 
treatment of non-believers in their form of 
religion resulted in his removal. In 1882 
Congress passed a law making polygamy a 
misdemeanor and denying the franchise to 
polygamists. Subsequently the Church re- 
nounced polygamy, and in 1895 a Constitu- 
tion was framed condemning polygamy and 
continuing in force the laws prohibiting it, and 
under this Constitution Utah was admitted as 
a State in 1896. 

OKLAHOMA AND THE INDIAN TERRITORY 

The last Territory organized was Okla- 
homa. It was formerly a part of a tract set 
aside in 1834 from the Louisiana Purchase 
for the use of Indian tribes and designated 
213 



Expansion of Our Territory 

"The Indian Territory." In 1866 the Creeks 
and Seminoles ceded some 5,000,000 acres of 
land to the United States, a part at fifteen 
and a part at thirty cents per acre, to be used 
exclusively for civilized Indians and freed- 
men, but large tracts remained unoccupied. 
In 1879 schemes for its occupancy by white 
men were developed, and some of the lands 
were occupied without authority and the 
occupants ejected by order of the President. 
Later the Creeks and Seminoles expressed a 
willingness to make a complete sale of the 
lands for the occupancy of the whites, and 
these lands were bought by the Government 
for $4,193,000 and opened to settlement, 
and the area established as the Territory 
of Oklahoma in 1890. Subsequently other 
lands were purchased from the Indians and 
added, and the area is now 39,030 square 
miles, or nearly equal to that of the State of 
Kentucky. 

The remainder of the Indian Territory 
still exists as an unorganized Territory, being 
without the form of government prescribed 
by Congress for Territories. In some parts 
the inhabitants are governed by the tribal 
214 



Later States 

cliiefs, in others by laws enacted by legisla- 
tures, and in part under Federal supervision 
by officers of tlie Bureau of Indian Affairs. 
The present area of the Indian Territory is 
31,400 square miles, or nearly equal to that 
of the State of Maine. 



15 215 



THIKTEENTH PEKIOD 

HAWAII, PORTO EICO, AND THE PHILIPPIIS^ES 

The latest developments in the addition 
of area to the United States and the estab- 
lishment of governments were the annexa- 
tion of the Hawaiian Islands on the applica- 
tion of the people of those islands, and of 
Porto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine Islands 
as a result of the war with Spain. 

ANNEXATION OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 

Neo^otiations for the annexation of the 
Hawaiian Islands began as early as 1854, 
under President Pierce, and would probably 
have been completed but for the death of 
the King of those islands after the annexa- 
tion treaty had been drawn and forwarded to 
Washington. In 1893 a revolution occurred 
in the islands and a provisional government 
was formed, and a commission sent to Wash- 
ington to negotiate for the annexation of the 
216 



Hawaii 

islands to the United States. A treaty of 
annexation was agreed upon by President 
Harrison, but had not been acted upon by 
the Senate at the close of his term, and 
was withdrawn by his successor, President 
Cleveland. At the close of President Cleve- 
land's term and the inauguration of President 
McKinley, the Hawaiian commissioners again 
proposed annexation and a treaty for that 
purpose was agreed upon and sent to the 
Senate ; but action on the treaty being 
delayed, a joint resolution passed the House 
and Senate in 1898, annexing the Islands 
as a part of the territory of the United 
States. In 1900 an act was passed ex- 
tending the Constitution and laws of the 
United States over the islands and creating 
them a Territory of the United States, 
with a Governor appointed by the Presi- 
dent, and a Legislature elected by the 
qualified voters. The islands are by law a 
customs district of the United States, and 
all articles pass between them and the United 
States without any tariif restrictions. A large 
proportion of the trade between the islands 
and the United States had been free from 
217 



Expansion of Our Territory- 
tariff restrictions under a reciprocity treaty- 
agreed upon in 1876, but the annexation of 
the islands and the removal of all tariff 
restrictions was followed by a marked in- 
crease in the commerce between the two 
sections and in the prosperity of the islands 
themselves. 

PORTO RICO, GUAM, AND THE PHILIPPINES 

The annexation of Porto Rico in the West 
Indies and Guam and the Philippine Islands 
in the Pacific were the result of the war with 
Spain, begun by the United States in 1898 to 
compel that Government to terminate her 
op]3ression of the people of Cuba. All of 
these islands were occupied by the American 
forces during that war, and on its termination 
they were all ceded by Spain to the .United 
States, the latter paying to Spain the sum 
of $20,000,000. While the treaty did not 
specify the purpose of this payment, it was 
understood that Porto Rico and Guam were 
retained by the United States, under the rules 
of war, as a partial compensation for her ex- 
penditures, and that the payment of $20,000,- 
000 was with reference to the Philippines. 
218 



Porto Rico and the Philippines 

The government of Porto Eico is ad- 
ministered by a Governor appointed by 
the President with the assent of the Sen- 
ate, and a Legislature of which the pop- 
ular branch is elected by the people, the 
upper branch being appointed by the Presi- 
dent. The government of the Philippine 
Islands is conducted by a commission ap- 
pointed by the President, a part of the 
number being citizens of the United States 
and a part natives of the Philippine Islands. 
Porto Rico is a customs district of the United 
States, and all merchandise passing between 
that island and the United States is free of 
duty, and this condition has resulted in a 
great increase in this commerce in both direc- 
tions. The tariif duties on articles from the 
Philippine Islands entering the United States 
have been reduced in part, and it is probable 
that they will be still further reduced, and 
perhaps entirely removed, as is now the case 
with reference to the products of Porto Rico 
and the Hawaiian Islands. The treaty with 
Spain provides that the products of that 
country entering the Philippine Islands shall 
be given the same rates of duty as those of 
219 



Expansion of Our Territory 

the United States for ten years from the date 
of the exchange of ratifications of the treaty, 
or until 1909. The occupation of all these 
islands obtained from Spain as a result of the 
war occurred in the year 1898. 

OUR SAMOAN ISLAND 

The Island of Tutuila in the Samoan 
group passed under the control of the United 
States in 1899. The United States, Great 
Britain and Germany had exercised a joint 
protectorate over the Samoan Islands since 
1889, but in 1899 this was terminated. 
Great Britain exchanging her claims for 
certain other islands formerly held by Ger- 
many, and the latter taking control of the 
entire Samoan group, except Tutuila, whose 
people had formerly expressed a desire for 
control by the United States. Tutuila and 
certain small islands adjacent to it were as- 
signed to the United States. The area of the 
island is but about fifty-four square miles, but 
its harbor is the best in the South Pacific, 
while that of the Hawaiian Islands is the best 
in the North Pacific. Tutuila and Guam are 
respectively governed by officers of the navy 
220 



Expansion of Our Territory 

designated for that service. The population 
of Tutuila is about 4,000, that of Guam about 
9,000. The population of Porto Kico is about 
1,000,000, that of the Philippine Islands 
about 8,000,000. 

THE HOME OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT 

The District of Columbia, the seat of the 
Government of the United States, was created 
as the result of legislation by the first Con- 
gress under the Constitution. Congress had 
led a wandering life during the period from 
the Declaration of Independence to the adop- 
tion of the Constitution. 

The first Congresses met in Philadelphia, 
but in the latter part of 1776, a few 
months after the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, there was reason to believe that 
Philadelphia might be attacked by Brit- 
ish troops, and Congress in December re- 
moved to Baltimore. It held one session 
there, returning to Philadelphia in the follow- 
ing March. By September of that year Phil- 
adelphia was again in danger, and Congress 
moved to Lancaster, Pa., where it remained 
but three days; and deeming York, on the 
222 



The Seat of Government 

western side of the Susquehanna, a safer lo- 
cation, removed to that place and remained 
there during that terrible winter which Wash- 
ington spent at Valley Forge. In the follow- 
ing May came the news of the alliance with 
France and the evacuation of Philadelphia by 
the British, and the Congress soon returned 
to Philadelphia, where it remained until 1783. 
In that year a little body of unpaid troops of 
the American army drew up in front of 
Independence Hall and demanded their pay. 
Congress called upon the city authorities for 
protection, but not receiving what it deemed 
proper attention, removed to Princeton, N. J. 
During its session there it decided that 
there should be two meeting places for Con- 
gress, one on the Potomac and one on the 
Delaware Kiver, and that until suitable places 
should be established Congress would meet 
alternately at Annapolis and Trenton. One 
session was held at Annapolis, beginning in 
November, 1783, and another at Trenton, in 
November, 1784 ; after which New York was 
determined upon as the place for meeting, 
and Congress met in that city in 1785. Its 
sessions were held there until after the adop- 
223 



Expansion of Our Territory 

tion of the Constitution and the inauguration 
of President Washington. 

The question of a permanent seat of gov- 
ernment came up soon after the inauguration 
of the first President. It was discussed 
with considerable sectional feeling, and was 
finally yielded to the South in exchange 
for support for Hamilton's proposition that 
the Government should assume the debts 
incurred by the various States during the 
Revolutionary War. The measure adopted 
provided for the location of the permanent 
seat of government on the Potomac, to be 
occupied in November, 1800, and Congress 
removed to Philadelphia in 1790 and re- 
mained there until 1800, when it removed 
to Washington, the permanent seat of gov- 
ernment, on the Potomac. An area 10 miles 
square, or 100 square miles, was meantime 
determined upon, lying on both sides of the 
Potomac, of which 64 square miles lay within 
the State of Maryland and 36 square miles in 
Virginia. Each of the States ceded the area 
asked for this purpose. The District was 
originally designated as "The Federal Dis- 
trict," and the city was designated as " The 
224 



The District of Columbia 

Federal City," but the commissioners ap- 
pointed in 1791 to determine its boundaries 
gave it tlie name of " The Territory of Colum- 
bia," and the name of the city, Washington, 
thus dividing honors between Columbus and 
Washington. Later the Territory became 
known as " The District of Columbia." The 
area was ceded by Maryland and Virginia on 
the condition that the Congress of the United 
States should forever exercise jurisdiction 

over it. 

In 1846, as no public buildings had been 
erected on the Virginia side of the Potomac, 
the area ceded by Virginia was retroceded to 
that State, leaving the area of the District of 
Columbia 64 square miles. The district was 
governed directly by Congress without the 
right of representation in that body until 
1871, when it was given a territorial form of 
government and a representative in Congress ; 
but in 1874 this was abolished and the gov- 
ernment placed in the hands of three com- 
missioners, to be appointed by the President 
with the assent of the Senate, all legislation 
for the collection and disbursement of taxes 
and public improvements to be performed by 
225 



Expansion of Our Territory 

Congress, and that system still prevails. The 
people of tlip District of Colunibia, therefore, 
have no vote and no representation in Con- 
gress. The entire District is included within 
the limits of the city of Washington. The 
city stands unique among the capitals of 
great nations, in the fact that it was created 
fpr thp sole purpose of a seat of government. 



THE CAUSES OF NATIONAL GKOWTH 

fa the events which have been sketched 
in the preceding chapters we have witnessed 
the growth of the nation from a mere hand- 
ful of people to 80,000,000, and from thirteen 
scattered colonies to more than fifty political 
communities combined in one great nation. 
The growth has been unparalleled in the his- 
tory of nations, and not merely the growth in 
area and population, but in all the other es- 
sentials of a great nation. In the production 
of the fields and forests and factories, in the 
development of systems of transportation and 
communication, in the growth of commerce 
among its own people and with those of other 
226 



Growth of Population 

parts of the world, tlie development has been 
marvelous and lias far exceeded anything in 
the previous record of man, and also sur- 
passed that in any other part of the world 
during the same period. In the hundred 
years from 1800 to 1900, the area grew from 
827,844 square miles to 3,622,923 square 
miles and the population from 5,308,483 to 
76,303,387. In other words, the area in 1900 
was four times as much and the population 
fourteen times as much as in 1800. 

GROWTH OP POPULATION 

During that time the population of the 
United Kingdom grew from 16,000,000 to 
41,000,000, or a little more than trebled ; that 
of France from 27,000,000 to 39,000,000, an 
increase of less than fifty per cent; that of 
Germany from 23,000,000 to 56,000,000; 
Eussia from 35,000,000 to 130,000,000, or 
four times its population in 1800. The popu- 
lation of all Europe has grown from 175,- 
000,000 to about 400,000,000 during the cen- 
tury, while that of the United States, with 
an area nearly equal to that of all Europe, has 
grown from 5,000,000 to 76,000,000. The 
227 



Expansion of Our Territory 

population of Europe at the end of the cen- 
tury was less than three times that at the be- 
ginning of the century, while that of the 
United States, with an equal area, was four- 
teen times as much as at the beginning of 
that period. 

GROWTH OF COMMERCE 

In commerce, both among our own people 
and with those of other parts of the world, 
our own growth has been equally marvelous, 
our exports of domestic products having 
grown from 32,000,000 in 1800 to 1,394,- 
000,000 in 1900, while those of France were 
growing from 70,000,000 to 793,000,000, and 
those of the United Kingdom from 200,000,- 
000 to 1,417,000,000. Thus, the domestic 
exports of the United Kingdom are seven 
times as much in 1900 as they were at the 
beginning of the century, those of France 
eleven times as much, and those of the United 
States forty -three times as much. 

GROWTH OF AREA 

This wonderful development on the part 
of the United States has been chiefly due to 
228 



Liberal Land Policy 

(1) the great additions to area ; (2) to the 
fact that a very large share of our area is of 
extremely productive land ; (3) that the na- 
tion has maintained from the first an ex- 
tremely liberal land policy. In the very 
beginning, when the colonies were first es- 
tablished, the English Government assumed 
the entire ownership of the land. This claim 
was based in part on the right of discovery 
and exploration, and in part on that of pur- 
chase from the occupants of the land, the 
Indians. All persons w^ere required to ob- 
tain their lands from the Government, and 
purchases from the Indians were not recog- 
nized or permitted* When the colonies es- 
tablished themselves as an independent na- 
tion they followed the same rule. As has 
been already told, those States which had 
large areas of unoccupied land in the West, 
ceded them to the Government. In those 
sections of that area which were occupied by 
Indians, the lands were purchased from them 
by the Government, even though they had 
been already ceded by the States. The sums 
paid for these lands were in the earlier years, 
of course, extremely small, but they served 
229 



Expansion of Our Territory 

the purpose of giving the Government a com- 
plete title and enabling it to dispose of the 
lands to those desiring to make homes upon 
them. A treaty with the Kaskaskia tribe of 
Indians, in 1803, gave to the United States 
the title to all of the land between the Illi- 
nois, the Ohio, the Mississippi and the 
Wabash Rivers for an annuity of $1,000 to 
the tribe, $100 per year for seven years to 
their priest, and $300 for the construction 
of a church ; and other great tracts were ob- 
tained for equally small considerations. In 
later years, however, much higher prices were 
paid to the Indians, the sum paid to the 
Choctaws for their lands in Mississippi being 
$50,000 and an annuity of $3,000. 

THE LAND SYSTEM 

During the first few years the Government 
sold lands in large tracts to companies or in- 
dividuals, among these sales being one to the 
Ohio Company of nearly a million acres, and 
another in the Ohio country to John Cleves 
Simmes of about a quarter of a million acres. 
It soon became apparent, however, that this 
policy was not a good one for the masses, and 
230 



The Land System 

it was abandoned. The lands were surveyed 
in townships ten miles square, and these sec- 
tions again divided into quarter sections of 
160 acres each. The lands were offered at 
$2 per acre, one quarter of the amount in 
cash, and the balance in three annual pay- 
ments. This resulted in very large sales, 
many of which were not paid in full, and in 
1820 the credit system was abandoned and a 
cash price of $1.25 per acre fixed. The pre- 
emption laws, under which the citizen may 
occupy 160 acres of land and pay therefor 
the price of $1.25 per acre, was based upon 
this. In 1862 the '^homestead" law was 
passed, by which any citizen might become 
the ovnaer of 160 acres of Government lands 
by a ^ve years' residence thereon, the con- 
struction of buildings and cultivation of the 
land. Another method by which the titles 
to land could be had was by planting and 
maintaining a certain proportion of it in for- 
est trees, and by this the forest area in the 
treeless sections of the West was materially 
increased. The arid lands of the West were 
also made available at a nominal price to 
persons who would irrigate them. 
16 231 



Expansion of Our Territory 

Another method by whicli the public 
lands were made to contribute to the develop- 
ment of the country was by utilizing a por- 
tion of them in the construction of transporta- 
tion systems. In the early part of the century, 
small grants of public lands were made to 
aid in the establishment of wagon-roads, and 
these were followed by larger grants in aid 
of canals ; 4,000,000 acres being granted 
for this purpose alone. About the middle of 
the century began the policy of granting 
lands in large quantities in aid of railroad 
construction. The first grant of this char- 
acter was to the Illinois Central Road, which 
was given each alternate section on either side 
of the proposed line for six sections in width, 
and this road thus begun now connects the 
Great Lakes with the Gulf. Agitation for 
the construction of a great through line to 
the Pacific soon began, and in 1862 a large 
grant of land was made in the interest of that 
project. This was quickly followed by grants 
to other roads : the Central Pacific, the Kan- 
sas Pacific, the Southern Pacific, the Northern 
Pacific, the Atlantic &, Pacific, and others not 
intended to become transcontinental lines. 
232 



Railroad Land Grants 

The amount of land so granted to railroads 
aggregated about 200,000,000 acres, but a con- 
siderable share of it was not given to the 
roads because of their non-compliance with 
the provisions of the grants. The amount of 
land actually patented to the railroads is 
about 100,000,000 acres. These grants were 
made on both sides of the line, each alternate 
section being given; and where the lands 
within the limit had been already occupied 
by settlers, the roads were given indemnity 
lands at a greater distance from the line. 
The Government compensated itself for this 
land by doubling the price of the alternate 
sections which it retained, and it was held 
that this worked no hardship on the people 
because the actual value of the lands was 
much more than doubled by the construction 
of the railroad, which would carry their 
products to market. The lands granted to 
the railroads were sold by them to the public 
usually on long time payments and were soon 
occupied, after the Government land near to 
the railroad was pre-empted and homesteaded. 
Up to the end of the fiscal year 1902 the 
amount of the public lands appropriated by 
233 



Expansion of Our Territory 

the various processes was 764,000,000 acres, 
equivalent to about 4,500,000 farms of 160 
acres each. Of these 764,000,000 acres which 
the Government has disposed of, about 175,- 
000,000 acres was in the form of homesteads, 
given at a merely nominal price to actual set- 
tlers, 225,000,000 acres by cash sales, of 
which about 200,000,000 acres was sold at 
$1.25 per acre to pre-empters, nearly 100,- 
000,000 in railroad lands, about 75,000,000 
in swamp lands, and 60,000,000 in bounties 
for military service ; a large area amounting 
to 151,000,000 acres has been set aside, 
chiefly as forest reserve, and there still re- 
main 894,000,000 of acres unappropriated 
and unreserved. This, of course, is not of as 
great value as that which has been already 
appropriated, much of it being mountainous, 
other parts arid, and 386,000,000 acres in 
Alaska. 

RESULT OF A LIBERAL LAND POLICY 

The result of this liberal land policy has 
been the opening up of the interior, the es- 
tablishment of homes, the construction of 
railways, and the development of systems of 
234 



Development of Agriculture 

agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation 
which far surpass anything accomplished 
meantime in any other part of the world. 
The railroad is a production entirely of the 
last century, and two-fifths of the railways 
built in the world in that time are in the 
United States. With the fertility of the 
lands, the wealth of the forests and mines, 
and the facility of transportation, the United 
States has become the world's greatest pro- 
ducer of foodstuffs, of cotton, of iron, of coal, 
of mineral oil, and of manufactures. The 
ready welcome extended to people of other 
lands, the homes offered free of cost to actual 
citizens, the high wages and general activity 
and employment, coupled with freedom from 
military service and a republican form of 
government, have attracted people from all 
parts of the world ; and the number of per- 
sons added to the population by immigration 
alone in the last century is fully 20,000,000. 
The total population, exclusive of the In- 
dians, grew from 143 persons at Jamestown 
in 1607 to about a quarter of a million in 
1700, 5,000,000 in 1800, and 76,000,000 in 
1900; the center of population has moved 
235 



Expansion of Our Territory 

from near Baltimore in 1800 to central In- 
diana in 1900, and the center of agriculture to 
southern Illinois, and the center of manufac- 
turing from the Atlantic Coast in 1800 to 
central Ohio in 1900. The total value of 
agricultural productions has grown to nearly 
$4,000,000,000, that of manufactures to over 
$8,000,000,000, exclusive of duplications, and 
the foreign commerce to over $2,000,000,000, 
while the internal commerce of the United 
States has grown to $20,000,000,000, or as 
much as the entire international commerce 
of the world. 

GROWTH IN MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY 

The growth in the manufacturing industry 
in the United States during this period of 
development has been very great. The total 
value of manufactures are shown by the cen- 
sus of 1850 at one billion dollars, that of 1860 
a little less than two billions, 1870 four 
billions, 1880 five billions, 1890 nine billions, 
and 1900 thirteen billions. Efforts to obtain 
statements of the value of manufactures were 
made in each census beginning with 1810, but 
with unsatisfactory results. The census of 
236 



Development of Manufacturing 

1810 placed the value of manufactures at 
$145,385,906, but an analysis and estimate 
made by Hon. Tench Coxe, who was ap- 
pointed by the Secretary of the Treasury to 
consider these figures, placed the total value 
of the manufactures of that year at $198,- 
614,471, so that it may be assumed that in 
round terms the value of the manufactures of 
the United States in 1810 was about $200,- 
000,000. From that date to 1850 the census 
returns were so incomplete that no satisfac- 
tory estimate of the value of the manufactures 
can be made for that period. The first census 
whose figures the census authorities of 1900 
deemed proper to present as a total of the 
manufactures of the country are those of 
1850, and they are given in the above table 
followed by those of 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890, 
and 1900. It will be seen from these figures 
that the gross value of manufactures had only 
reached $1,000,000,000 by the middle of the 
century, and that they had reached $13,000,- 
000,000 at the end of the century; or, in 
other words, that the increase in the last half 
of the century was twelve times as great as 
the total at the middle of the century. It 
237 



Expansion of Our Territory 

is probable tliat the value of manufactures in 
1800 was about $130,000,000, and tliat those 
of 1900 are therefore about one hundred times 
as great as those of 1800. The total value of 
manufactures exported in 1800 was $2,500,- 
000, and in 1900, $433,000,000. 

The slow growth in the first half of the 
century is due in part to the fact that a large 
share of the manufacturing was still per- 
formed in the household. While the factory- 
system of manufacture began to take the 
place of that of the household in England in 
the closing years of the eighteenth century, 
especially as related to textiles, it did not ob- 
tain a foothold in the United States until 
during the period of the embargo and the 
War of 1812 ; and it was not until about 1840 
that it became general, and, as late as the 
middle of the century, a considerable share 
of the manufacturing was still carried on in 
the family or in the small shop by the aid of 
the family and apprentices, as distinguished 
from the factory with paid employees and 
the application of power. Hence, it is not 
surprising that the census of 1850 showed 
manufactures amounting to but one billion 
238 



The Manufacturing Industry 

dollars' value, wliile tlie chief cause for aston- 
ishment is the wonderful growth which has 
occurred since that time, a growth from 
$1,000,000,000 in 1850 to $13,000,000,000 in 
1900. 

It is proper to add that the figures of the 
total value of manufactures are merely an ag- 
gregation of the values reported by all manu- 
facturers; and as the products reported by 
one manufacturer often become the materials 
for use by others, the figures of the grand 
total are to that extent duplications. For 
example, the leather reported as a manufac- 
ture by the tanner, becomes the material used 
by the manufacturer of boots and shoes, and 
is a second time reported by him in stating 
the value of the manufactures turned out. 
The yarn produced by one manufacturer be- 
comes the manufacturing material for the 
maker of cloth, and the cloth becomes the 
material used by the manufacturer of cloth- 
ing; the value of the yarn being thus re- 
ported three times and that of the cloth twice 
in the final statement of the grand total of 
manufactures produced. But as this custom 
has been followed in each census it does not 
239 



Expansion of Our Territory 

materially affect tlie value of the figures for 
comparative purposes in showing the growth 
of the manufacturing industry. On the other 
hand, the fact that the values of manufactures 
have greatly fallen since the earlier dates 
considered indicates that the actual increase 
in quantity produced is even greater than 
that indicated by the figures which, necessa- 
rily, deal with values only. 

The increase in production of manufac- 
tures, the increase in production of raw 
material, and the increase of transportation 
facilities, suggest that probably the manu- 
facturing industries have extended far into 
the interior of the country, and especially to 
those sections where the raw material or the 
coal is produced; and an examination of 
the census records shows that this is true. 
We are accustomed to think of the New Eng- 
land and Middle States as the chief seat of 
the manufacturing industries, and it is rather 
surprising to know that the center of the 
manufacturing industries has steadily moved 
westward until it is now located in the State 
of Ohio. 

It is equally surprising to know that Ohio 
240 



Centers of Industries 

ranks first of all the States of the Union in 
the manufacture of carriages and wagons and 
of clay products, and second in agricultural 



Chicago 

ILLINOIS 
^Sprlngfleld 



1900XJ 



N D I A N A 
Indianapolis 

igooOci 



^^n:^ PENNSYLVANIA 

1800 |Oo1870 I860 

1900© *' A ©1860 OHyrlsburs 

1860 



^<^: 



i87<jr_ 1P70 '*>^18M h-3od/"^d\<,: 

Frankfort V"«»o ^n,*^^ / ^ 

.. ^ V V \ ^ r Riclimond^ 

-^ U C N T \ J a 

^Center of Manufaoturec 
■1 Population 
■ A g rloultura 



CENTER OF POPULATION AT DECENNIAL YEARS FROM 1790 TO 1900 AND OF AGRICULTURE 
it MANUFACTURE FROM 1860 TO 1900. 
(Jrom U.S. Census.) 



implements, and in iron and steel manufac- 
tures. Illinois holds first rank in the manu- 
facture of agricultural implements, cars, bi- 
cycles and distilled liquors ; and, second, in 
men's clothing, furniture, musical instruments, 
and soap and candles. Wisconsin ranks first 
in lumber and timber production ; Minnesota 
first in flour manufacturing ; Missouri first in 
the manufacture of tobacco ; Texas first in the 
manufacture of cottonseed oil-cake ; Colorado 
241 



Expansion of Our Territory 

first in lead, and California first in explosives, 
wines, and preserved fruits. 

OUR AREA COMPARED WITH THAT OF OTHER 
COUNTRIES 

One other cause of our growth in produc- 
tion is the greatness, the physical greatness, 
of our country. We scarcely realize how big 
we have grown. We proudly compare the 
growth of our manufacturing or exports with 
that of the United Kingdom, for example; 
but do not, apparently, stop to consider that 
the area of England is less than that of the 
State of Kansas, and that of the entire 
United Kingdom less than that of Kansas 
and Nebraska combined. When we compare 
our own conditions with those of France, we 
forget that its area is less than that of our 
two Territories of Arizona and New Mexico 
combined. We look with complacency upon 
the figures which compare our growth in 
manufactures, commerce and population with 
that of Germany, but overlook the fact that 
all of the German Empire is smaller than 
our single State of Texas. The area of the 
thirteen colonies, as defined by the Peace 
242 



Comparative Areas 

Treaty of 1783, was equal to that of the 
present United Kingdom, France, Germany, 
Norway and Sweden, whose combined popu- 
lation to-day is 143,000,000. The area added 
by the Louisiana Purchase is greater than 
the present area of Spain, Portugal, Italy, 
Austria, Hungary, and all of the Balkan 
States, with a combined population of 125,- 
000,000. The area added by the Florida 
Purchase is more than that of the present 
Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, and Switz- 
erland, whose population to-day is 18,000,000. 
The combined area of the Texas, Mexican, 
Oregon, and Alaska additions is nearly equal 
to that of all European Eussia, whose present 
population is 106,000,000. Thus, our pres- 
ent area, including Alaska, may be said to 
practically equal that of all Europe, whose 
population is in round terms 400,000,000 of 
people. 



243 



Appendix 



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Expansion of Our Territory 



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247 



Expansion of Our Territory 



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248 



Appendix 



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249 



Expansion or Our Territory 



11 

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18.13 
17.16 
16.12 
15.58 
15 32 
16.75 
19.41 
21.71 
22.37 
22.91 
22.65 
23.02 
21.82 
22.45 
22.88 
22.52 
22.82 
23.45 
24.60 
24.06 
24.56 
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1 









250 



Appendix 



Agricultural and Manufacturing Interests op 
THE United States. 1850 to 1900 

(United States Census Figures.) 





Farms. 


Years. 


Number 

of 
farms. 


Persons 
engaged 
iu agri- 
culture. 


Value of 
farms aud 

farm 
property. 


Value of 
products. 


1850 


1,449,073 
2,044,077 
2,659,985 
4,608,907 
4,564,641 
5,739,657 


Number. 


Dollars. 
3,967,343,580 
7,980,493,060 
8,944,857,749 
12,18(1,501,538 
16,082,267,689 
20,514,001,838 


Dollars. 


I860 


"* 5,922,47i 
7,713,875 
8,565,926 
10,438,219 




1870 


1,958,030,927 
2,212,540,927 
2,460,107,454 
3,764,177,706 


1880 


1890 

1900 



Years. 



1850.. 
I860.. 
1870.. 
1880.. 
1890.. 
1900.. 



Total manufacturing industries of the 
United fcstates. 



Num- 
ber of 
estab- 
lish- 
ments. 



123,025 
140,433 
252,148 
253,852 
355,415 
512.734 



Average 
number 
of em- 
ployees. 



957,050 
1,311,246 
2,053,996 
2,732,595 
4,712,622 
5,719,137 



Wages and 

salaries 

paid. 



Dollars. 
236,755,464 
378,878,966 
775,584,343 
947,953,795 
2,283,216,529 
2,735,430,848 



Value of 
products. 



Wealth. 



Total. 



Dollars. Dollars. 

1,019,106,616 7,135,780,000 
1,885,861,676 16,159,616,000 
4,232,325,442 30,068,518,000 
5,369,579,191 42,642,000,000 
9,372,437,283 65,037,091,000 
13.039.279.566 194.300,000.000 



Per 

capita. 



Dollars 
307.69 
513.93 
779.83 
850.20 
1,038.57 
1,235.86 



251 



Expansion of Our Territory 



Additions to the Territory of the United 
States from 1800 to 1900 



TERRITORIAL DIVISION. 


Year. 


Area added. 


Purchase 
price. 


LouisiEDii PurcUase 


1803 
1819 
1845 
1846 
1848 
1850 
1853 
1867 
1897 
1898 
1898 
1899 
1899 
1901 


Square miles. 
875,025 
70,107 
389,795 
288,689 
523,802 

36,211 

599,446 

6,740 

3,600 

175 

143,000 

73 


Dollars. 
15,000,000 
1 6,489,768 


Florida 


Texas . 






Mexican Cession 


2 19,250,000 

10,000,000 

10,000,000 

7,200,000 


Purchase from Texas .• 




Alaska . 




Porto Rico 




(juam •••• . . •••• 




Philippine Islands 


20,000,000 












Total 


O Q"« TQI 1 C7 r»QQ 7^8 






' ' 



' Includes interest payment. 

2 Of w.hich $3,250,000 was in payment of claims of American citizens 
against Mexico. 

8 Area purchased from Texas, amounting to 123,784 square miles, is not 
included in the column of area added, because it became a part of the area 
of the United States with the admission of Texas. 



252 



INDEX 



Addition of territory by treaty 

of 1783, 77. 
Additions of territory, dates, 

area, price paid, 252. 
Agriculture and manufactures in 

United States, 1850 to 1900, 

251. 
Alabama Territory organized, 

142 ; admitted as State, 142. 
Alaska Purchase, 204. 
AUeghanies, early settlement 

west of, 42. 
America, population of , when dis- 
covered, estimate of, 8. 
Area of the original thirteen 

States, 2. 
Area of United States, 1800 to 

1903, 249. 
Area, growth of, 228 ; comparison 

with other countries, 243. 
Arizona, Territory organizefl, 202. 
Arkansas, Territory organized, 

147 ; admission as State, IGO. 

Balance of power between slave 
and free States, 156. 

Boundaries of Louisiana Pur- 
chase, 123. 

Boundaries of Union, determined 
by treaty of 1783, 76. 

Boundaries of Union in 1782, 74. 



Boundary dispute between Michi- 
gan and Ohio, 159. 

Brazil, Portuguese in, 17. 

Burr, his attempt to establish a 
government in the West, 128. 

California, settlements by Span- 
ish, 14 ; admitted as State, 179. 

Carolinas, history of settlement, 
37. 

Cession of Western lands to 
Union, 82. 

Civil War, the, 190. 

Colonies, confederation of, 73. 

Colonization, early attempts by 
English, 20 ; begun by Colum- 
bus, 11. 

Colonizing methods of English, 
French, and Spanish compared, 
22. 

Commerce, 1800 to 1903, 249. 

Commerce, growth of, 228. 

Compromises on slavery question* 
152, 183, 196. 

Confederation of colonies, 73. 

Congress, meeting-places of, 222. 

Connecticut, establishment of 
colony, 35. 

Constitution, adoption of, 74-92. 

Coronado, explorations north of 
the Rio Grande, 13. 



25J 



Expansion of Our Territory 

Cortez, exploration of Mexico, 12. English colonization, early at- 



Court of France and division of 

North America, 78. 
Cuba, captured by British and 

exchanged for Florida, 65. 

Dakota, Territory organized, 199 ; 
divided and admitted, 210. 

Dare, Eleanor, story of, 20. 

De Ayllon plants Spanish colony 
on site of Jamestown, 14. 

Delaware, Dutch claims in, 36. 

De Soto, wanderings in Missis- 
sippi Valley, 13. 

Discovery, claims by reason of. 23. 

District of Columbia, history, 
222 ; government, 225. 

District of Louisiana, 126. 

Division of Western territory, 
Jefferson's plan, 88. 

Dom Pedro and Brazilian Govern- 
ment, 17, 

*' Dred Scott case," 186. 

Dutch colonies on the Hudson, 
29. 

Dutch, their claims in America, 
31 ; their claims in New Jersey 
and Delaware, 36. 

Dutch territory, captured by 
English, 36. 

Eleanor Dare, story of, 20. 

English and French, a war for 
control of Mississippi Valley, 
49. 

English colonies, how they dif- 
fered from French and Spanish, 
22 ; in West Indies and at the 
North, 43; relations of, prior 
to 1750, 4S. 



tempts, 20. 

Enghsh, explorations in America, 
19. 

Expansion begun by Louisiana 
Purchase, 117. 

Explorations of French and Eng- 
lish, 19-44. 

First child of English parentage 
born in America, 20. 

First European settlement in 
America, 1 1. 

First Territorial government in 
common territory, 91 . 

Florida, exploration of, by Ponce 
de Leon, 12 ; obtained by Brit- 
ish in exchange for Cuba, 65 ; 
admission as State, 162 ; pur- 
chase of, 144. 

Formation of States described, 
107. 

Fort Duquesne, battle of, 53. 

France, plans for division of 
North America, 78. 

Frankland, Lidependent State of, 
86. 

French and English claims in 
Mississippi Valley, 43. 

French and English, war for 
control of Mississippi Valley, 
49. 

French colonies, how they dif- 
fered from English and Span- 
ish, 22. 

French colonization begun, 26. 

French exploration, routes of, and 
claims resulting, 27. 

French explorations in America, 
18,44 



254 



Index 



French Government and treaty 
of 178o, 76. 

French withdrawal from Conti- 
nent of North America, 55. 

Gadsden purchase, 179. 

Georgia, colonization of, 39 ; ces- 
sion of western lands, 108. 

Gold discovery in the Rocky 
Mountains, 196. 

Growth of area, population, com- 
merce, and manufactures, 228. 

Hawaii, annexation, 216 ; made 
Territory, 217. 

Idaho, Territory organized, 202 ; 
admitted as State, 210. 

Illinois, Territory organized, 131 ; 
admitted as State, 141. 

Independence and union of colo- 
nies, 57. 

Independent State of Frankland, 
86. 

Indiana,Territory organized, 114; 
Territory divided, 133 ; admit- 
ted as State, 141. 

Indian Territory, 314. 

Iowa, admission as a State, 163. 

" Island of New Orleans," its 
control of Mississippi naviga- 
tion, 118. 

Jamestown, Spanish as first set- 
tlers, 14; planting of colony, 
25 ; on site formerly occupied 
by Spanish, 26. 

Jefferson's plan for division and 
government of Western terri- 
tory. 88. 

Joliet, routes of exploration, 27. 



Kansas, organized as Territory, 
181 ; admitted as State, 20'.». 

"Kansas-Nebraska Bill," 185. 

Kentucky, admission to Union, 
103 ; solicited to organize as in- 
dependent republic, 104. 

Land policy of the United States 
described, 229. 

London Company, organization 
of, 34. 

Louisiana, territory of, 126 ; dis- 
trict of, 126; admitted as 
State, 126; Purchase, 117; 
causes of, 118 ; area and cost 
of, 122 ; boundaries defined, 146. 

Maine, as a part of Massachu- 
setts, 150 ; history of, 1 50 ; ad- 
mission as a State, 150. 

Manufactures and agriculture in 
United States, 1850 to 1900, 
251. 

Manufactures, growth of, 238. 

Marquette, routes of exploration. 
37. 

Maryland, establishment of 
colony, 35. 

Meeting-places of Congress, 232. 

Mexican cession, 175. 

Mexico, establishment of repub- 
lic, 15, 165 ; war with, 175. 

Michigan and Ohio, boundary 
disjjute, 159. 

Michigan, Territory organized, 
1 37 ; admission as State, 1 60 ; its 
large and varying area as a Ter- 
ritory, 161. 

Minnesota, organized as Terri- 
tory, 170; admitted as State, 
181. 



255 



Expansion of Our Territory 



Mississippi, Territory established, 

107 ; admitted as State, 141. 
Missidsippi River, its control the 

cause of Louisiana Purchase, 

122. 
Mississippi Valley, French and 

English claims to, 43 ; struggle 

for control of, 49. 
Missouri, admission as a State, 

151. 
Missouri Compromise, 196. 
Money in circulation in United 

States, 1800 to 1903, 249. 
Montana, Territory organized, 

210 ; admitted as State, 210. 
Mormons in Utah, 212. 

National growth, causes of, 226. 

Nebraska, organized as Territory, 
181 ; admitted as State, 209. 

Nevada, Territory organized, 198; 
admitted as State, 203. 

Nevs^ Amsterdam, Dutch colonies 
on Hudson, 32. 

New England, colonies estab- 
lished, 34. 

New Hampshire, establishment 
of colony, 35. 

New Jersey, Dutch claims in, 36. 

New Mexico, organized as Terri- 
tory, 180. 

New York, capture from Dutch 
by English, 32, 36. 

North Carolina, settlement of, 37. 

North Dakota, admitted as State, 
210. 

Northwest Territory, organiza- 
tion of, 90 ; non-compliance 
with act requiring division into 
five States, 171. 

25 



Ohio, admission to Union, 113. 

Ohio and Michigan, boundary 
dispute, 159. 

" Ohio Company," 113. 

Ohio Valley annexed to Canada, 
61. 

Oklahoma Territory organized, 
213. 

Ordinance of 1787, Northwest 
Territory, 91. 

Oregon, Territory, boundary dis- 
pute and settlement, 172 ; ad- 
mitted as State, 181. 

Orleans Territory organized, 126. 

Pacific Railway, 196. 

Penn, his colony in America, 38. 

Pennsylvania, settlement of, 38. 

Peru, conquest of, by Pizarro, 12. 

Philippines, annexed, 218 ; gov- 
ernment described, 219. , 

Pizarro, conquest of Peru, 12. 

Plymouth Company, organiza- 
tion of, 24. 

Plymouth, history of, 28. 

Ponce de Leon, exploration of 
Florida, 12. 

Population, 1800 to 1003, 249. 

Population, growth of, 229. 

Population of America when dis- 
covered, estimates of, 8. 

Porto Rico annexed, 218 ; gov- 
ernment described, 219. 

Portugal, colonization in Amer- 
ica, 17. 

Quebec, first permanent French 
colony, 26. 

Readmission of seceding States, 
206. 

G 



Ind 



ex 



Reconstruction after Civil War, 
20G. 

Relations between English colo- 
nies prior to 1 750, 48. 

Relinquishment of Western terri- 
tory by original States, 8*2. 

Representation of slave popula- 
tion in Congress, 207. 

Revolution, causes of, 58 ; Eng- 
lish territory in America at 
beginning of, C5. 

Revolution, story of War of, 67. 

Rhode Island, establishment of 
colony, 35. 

Samoan Islands annexed, 220. 

San Miguel, Spanish colony on 
site occupied by Jamestown, 4. 

Seceding States readmitted, 20G. 

Settlement in America, first, 11. 

Slave and free States admitted 
alternately, 137-155. 

Slave population, representation 
in Congress, 207. 

Slavery excluded from territory 
northwest of Ohio, 90-95 ; per- 
mitted in territory south of 
Ohio, 95 ; its relation to the 
admission of States, 137, 150- 
152 ; abolition of, in Northern 
States, 155-196; balance of 
power between slave and free 
States, 156 ; its extension to 
Western Territories discussed, 
183 ; its origin in the United 
States, 195; terminated by Civil 
War, 195. 

South Carolina, settlement of, 
37 ; history of ita Western ter- 
ritory, 97. 



South Dakota, admitted as State, 
210. 

Spain, war with United Spates, 
15. 

Spanish colonies in America, date 
of, 12 ; how they differed from 
French and English, 22. 

State-making described, 107. 

States, admitted without Ter- 
ritorial apprenticeship, 107 ; 
how organized and admitted, 
107. 

Statistics of area, population, 
etc., 249. 

Taxation without representation, 
opposition to, 59. 

Tennessee, admission as State, 
105. 

Territory northwest of Ohio, or- 
ganization of, 90. 

Territory of Missouri, name given 
Louisiana Purchase, 140. 

Territory south of Ohio, organi- 
zation of, 94 ; slavery in, 95. 

Territory relinquished to Union 
by original States, 82. 

Texas, withdrawal from Mexico 
and admission as State, 1 65 ; 
agreement that it may be di- 
vided into five States, 169 ; pur- 
chase of its northern area by 
United States, 170. 

Transylvania, application for ad- 
mission to Union, 103. 

Treaty of 1763, withdrawal of 
French, 56. 

Treaty of 1783, its addition to 
Union, 77. 

Tutuila, island of, annexed, 220. 



257 



Expansion of Our Territory 



Union of colonies and independ- 
ence, 57. 

United States, war with Spain, 
15. 

Utah, organized as Territory, 
179 ; admitted as Territory, 
213 ; admitted as State, 213. 

Vermont, history and admission 
to Union, 100. 

War between States, 190. 

War of 1812, 133. 

War of Revolution, story of, 67. 

Washington, organized as Terri- 
tory, 180; admitted as State, 
210. 

West Florida, history of, 135 ; 
added to national area, 138. 



Western lands ceded to Union by 

original States, 82. 
Western territory, Jefferson's 

plan for division and govern- 
ment, 88. 
West Indies, English colonies in, 

43. 
West Virginia, organization as 

State during Civil War, 200. 
Wisconsin, admission as State, 

170. 
Wyoming, composed of parts of 

four Territorial additions, 21 2. 
Wyoming, Territory organized, 

210 ; admitted as State, 210. 

"Yazoo Frauds" in Georgia 
lands, 112. 



(1) 



THE END 



258 



EXPANSION OF THE REPUBLIC SERIES. 



In this series the purpose is to show what have been the great devel- 
oping forces in the making of the United States as we now know them. 
]Not only will territorial subjects be dealt with, but political, racial, and 
industrial. It is an important series, and the reception already accorded 
to it gives promise of real distinction for the entire set. 

Each volume i2mo, Illustrated, $1.25 net. 
Postage, 12 cents additional. 

NO IV READY. 

The History of the Louisiana Purchase. 

By James K. Hosmer, Ph.D., LL.D. 

Ohio and her Western Reserve. 

By Alfred Mathews. 

The History of Puerto Rico. 

By R. A. Van Middeldyk. With an Introduction, etc., by 
Prof. Martin G. Brumbaugh. 

Steps in the Expansion of our Territory. 

By Oscar Phelps Austin, Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, 
Treasury Department. 

IN PREPARATION. 

Rocky Mountain Exploration. 

By Reuben Gold Thwaites, Superintendent of the State 
Historical Society of Wisconsin. 
The Conquest of the Southwest. 

By Cyrus Townsend Brady, Author of "Paul Jones," in the 
Great Commanders Series. 

The Purchase of Alaska. 

By Oscar Phelps Austin, Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, 
Treasury Department. 

PROPOSED VOLUMES. 

The Settlement of the Pacific Coast. 

The Founding of Chicago and the Development of the Middle 

West. 
John Brown and the Troubles in Kansas. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



THE STORY OF THE WEST SERffiS* 

Edited by RIPLEY HITCHCOCK. 
The Story of the Trapper. 

By A. C. Laut, Author of "Heralds of Empire." Illustrated by 
Heming. i2mo. Cloth, $1.25 net ; postage, 12 cents additional. 

"A delightfully spirited hook/'— Brooklyn Eagle. 

"A rarely instructive and entertaining book." — New York Wold. 

"Unexpectedly good." — Boston Herald. 

" Instructive and carefully prepared." — Chicago News. 

"Excellent reading wherever one dips into it." — Cleveland Leader, 



OTHER VOLUMES. 

Illustrated, lamo. Cloth, each, $1.50. 

The Story of the Soldier. 

By General G. A. Forsyth, U. S. Army (retired). Illustrated by R. F. 
Zogbaum. 

The Story of the Railroad. 

By Cy Warman, Author of "The Express Messenger," etc. With 
Maps and many Illustrations by B. West Clinedinst and from photographs. 

The Story of the Cowboy. 

By E. Hough, Author of " The Singing Mouse Stories," etc. Illustrated 
by William L. Wells and C. M. Russell. 

"Mr. Hough is to be thanked for having written so excellent a book. The cow- 
boy story, as this author has told it, will be the cowboy's fitting eulogy. This vol- 
ume will be consulted in years to come as an authority on past conditions of the far 
West. For fine literary work the author is to be highly complimented. Here, cer- 
tainly, we have a choice piece of writing." — New York Times. 

The Story of the Mine. 

As illustrated by the Great Corastock Lode of Nevada. By Charles 
Howard Shinn. 

"The author has written a book not alone full of information, but replete with 
the true romance of the American mine." — New York Times. 

The Story of the Indian. 

By George Bird Grinnell, Author of "Pawnee Hero Stories," 
•' Blackfoot Lodge Tales," etc. 

" Only an author qualified by personal experience could offer us a profitable study 
of a race so alien from our own as is the Indian in thought, feeling, and culture. 
Only long association with Indians can enable a white man measurably to compre- 
hend their thoughts and enter into their feelings. Such association has been Mr. 
Grinnell's." — New York Sun. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 









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